A primary goal of prejudice and stereotyping research is to reduce intergroup disparities arising from various forms of bias. For the last thirty years, much, perhaps most, of this research has focused on implicit bias as the crucial construct of interest. There has been, however, considerable confusion and debate about what this construct is, how to measure it, whether it predicts behavior, how much it contributes to intergroup disparities, and what would signify successful intervention against it. We argue that this confusion arises in part because much work in this area has focused narrowly on the automatic processes of implicit bias without sufficient attention to other relevant psychological constructs and processes, such as people’s values, goals, knowledge, and self-regulation (Devine, 1989). We believe that basic research on implicit bias itself is important and can contribute to reducing intergroup disparities, but those potential contributions diminish if and when the research disregards controlled processes and the personal dilemma faced by sincerely nonprejudiced people who express bias unintentionally. We advocate a renewed focus on this personal dilemma as an important avenue for progress.

Researchers in cognitive psychology have proposed that there are two distinct cognitive systems or dual processes underlying reasoning: automatic (implicit) processing and effortful (explicit) processing. Multiple measures have since been developed to capture implicit attitudes. However, do these new measures truly capture implicit attitudes? And can these implicit measures be used interchangeably? To answer this question, we investigated the differences between two of the most popular implicit attitudes measures used in the study of political behavior, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP). We examined data from an original survey experiment investigating gender attitudes and a nationally representative survey that measured racial attitudes. We found that it is important to consider implicit measures alongside explicit measures, as they are not redundant measures. However, when implicit attitudes are measured with the IAT, our inferences are more consistent with predictions of dual process accounts. Moreover, the IAT picks up out-group bias in a way that the AMP does not. The two studies point to the presence of significant differences between different types of implicit measures, and a need to reconsider how implicit attitudes are measured.

The concept of unconscious bias is firmly entrenched in American society, yet evidence has accumulated in recent years questioning widely accepted claims about the phenomenon, including assertions that it can be measured reliably, influences behavior and is susceptible to intervention. We adopt a two-pronged approach to investigating the state of affairs: First, assessing claims made about unconscious bias in the public sphere; and second, conducting a national public opinion survey – the first of its kind, to the extent we can ascertain – designed to measure public understanding of unconscious bias. Results show that broad majorities of Americans think unconscious biases are prevalent, influence behavior and can be mitigated through training. Confidence in its accurate measurement is lower. The public sees unconscious biases as more prevalent than biases that are consciously held, and as worthy of mitigation efforts by businesses and government. Our chapter assesses these attitudes and understandings and compares them with the state of the science on unconscious bias.

There are widespread assumptions that implicit group bias leads to biased behavior. This chapter summarizes existing evidence on the link between implicit group bias and biased behavior, with an analysis of the strength of that evidence for causality. Our review leads to the conclusion that although there is substantial evidence that implicit group bias is related to biased behavior, claims about causality are not currently supported. With plausible alternative explanations for observed associations, as well as the possibility of reverse causation, scientists and policy makers need to be careful about claims made and actions taken to address discrimination, based on the assumption that implicit bias is the problem.

We offer a conceptual framework by which to consider implicit bias. In contrast to a far too common presumption that implicit bias involves unconscious attitudes and stereotypes, i.e., ones for which individuals lack awareness, we emphasize a view of implicit bias as an effect of attitudes of which individuals are unaware. The perspective is grounded in decades of social psychological theory and research concerning the constructive nature of perception and the potential biasing influence of attitudes on perceptions and judgments. Attitudes that are automatically activated from memory can exert such a biasing influence, without individuals’ awareness that they have been affected. We articulate the advantages of such a perspective for both the science and the politics of implicit bias. We also discuss how individuals can overcome the influence of an automatically activated attitude, given appropriate motivation and opportunity to do so, and briefly review evidence concerning the joint influence of these factors on prejudicial judgments and behavior.

Implicit bias has always been understood as an individual attitude that is rooted in one’s social environment. However, in practice, the field has focused more heavily on the individual attitude, to the neglect of the social environment. In this chapter, we describe an alternative view of implicit bias – the Bias of Crowds model – that reinterprets implicit bias as a feature of social contexts more than persons. In doing so, we argue that, akin to the “wisdom of crowds” effect, implicit bias may emerge as the aggregate effect of individual fluctuations in concept accessibility that are transitory and context-dependent. We also explain how this novel interpretation of implicit bias resolves long-standing concerns regarding the temporal instability and weak predictive validity of implicit attitudes measures. Finally, we review direct empirical tests of the model and its predictions and consider future avenues for research, as well as theoretical and practical implications.

This chapter reviews research on a contemporary form of prejudice – aversive racism – and considers the important role of implicit bias in the subtle expressions of discrimination associated with aversive racism. Aversive racism characterizes the racial attitudes of a substantial portion of well-intentioned people who genuinely endorse egalitarian values and believe that they are not prejudiced but at the same time possess automatically activated, often nonconscious, negative feelings and beliefs about members of another group. Our focus in this chapter is on the bias of White Americans toward Black Americans, but we also discuss relevant findings in other intergroup contexts. We emphasize the importance of considering, jointly, both explicit and implicit biases for understanding subtle, and potentially unintentional, expressions of discrimination. The chapter concludes by discussing how research on aversive racism and implicit bias has been mutually informative and suggests specific promising directions for future work.

This chapter explores prejudice and discrimination and their effects on LGBTIQ people and communities. First, this chapter reviews research on attitudes towards LGBTIQ people, with reference to studies of homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. With specific reference to hate crimes, it next discusses homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic victimisation. Systematic prejudice (structural prejudice embedded in social and legal institutions) is then discussed in relation to key constructs such as heterosexism, heteronormativity, and cisgenderism. The final section of the chapter focuses on minority stress and the ways in which this and other processes (e.g., internalised homophobia, decompensation) contribute to psychological distress among LGBTIQ people, including those who a multiply marginalised. The impacts of these factors on mental health in LGBTIQ populations are also discussed.

The nature of prejudice and bigotry have changed in recent decades. In most communities it is unacceptable to be openly racist, sexist, or homophobic. Norms against prejudice have certainly changed. It is true that prejudice directed toward many groups has decreased; however, individual attitudes have not necessarily caught up with changing norms. As a result, some people hide their prejudices, attempting to mask their discrimination in neutral-seeming behavior. Others truly believe they are not prejudiced, even when they are. Social psychologists have spent recent decades measuring and mapping the nature of subtle, covert, and implicit forms of contemporary prejudice. Benign Bigotry critically examines seven contemporary myths and assumptions that reflect prejudice that appears common sense, even harmless, but actually reveal the perniciousness and insidiousness of contemporary prejudice. Benign Bigotry critically analyzes: (1) the assumption that prejudice is an individual-only problem; (2) that people in outgroups are all alike; (3) that those accused of a crime are likely guilty of something; (4) that feminists are manhaters; (5) that LGBTQ+ people flaunt their sexuality; (6) that those who claim racial colorblindness are not racists; and (7) that affirmative action amounts to reverse racism.

What are the implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection for thinking, prejudicial or otherwise, about foreigners, race, Jews, sexual orientation, and women? Did Darwin himself, caught in Victorian prejudices, have any awareness of the full implications of his theorizing?

This chapter describes the origin, development, and subsequent conceptualization of native-speakerism, as well as profiling relevant research on it. Importantly, it also offers my own understanding and interpretation about the notion. To do this, the chapter presents a selection of previous discussions and empirical research into native-speakerism and documents some of the most deleterious effects that native-speakerism has had on the lives and identities of both NESTs and NNESTs worldwide – specifically the effects on NNES teachers and researchers in Japan, who are the focal points of this book. I commence this chapter with a theoretical overview of the ways in which native-speakerism came to be recognized and defined. I then introduce my own analysis of what native-speakerism entails at this moment in time within the ELT field. Afterward, I provide an overview of germane conceptual and empirical studies on native-speakerism while offering my own critiques of them as I do so. With the key points and positionings of the discussion established, I conclude this chapter by positing my case for the originality and significance of this endeavor and by presenting the focal research questions which the research within this volume attempts to answer.

When we witness another person experiencing pain, be it emotional or physical, we have an empathic reaction. And even if we commit a harmful action against another person, we most of the time experience guilt in the aftermath, which prevents us from performing the same action in the future. Guilt and empathy are critical moral emotions that together usually prevent us from harming others. However, as this chapter shows, systematic processes of classification and dehumanization at play before a genocide can alter moral emotions towards another part of the population. Activity in empathy-related brain regions is generally reduced towards individuals that we consider as outgroup or towards dehumanized individuals. Neuroscience studies have further shown that when obeying orders to hurt another person, neural activity in empathy- and guilt-related brain regions is reduced compared to acting freely. Such results show how obeying orders diminishes our aversion to harming others.

Today, bitch is one of the handiest words in the English language. It’s used to express a multitude of emotions – anger, horror, fear, frustration, despair, envy, resentment, shock, surprise, pain, and pity. But on the other hand, it can also express happiness, excitement, and endearment. Bitch is invoked to offend people, but also to compliment them, to complain, or to show camaraderie. Bitch is complicated. It can mean so many things at once, and yet, it has still retained its original humble meaning. It’s been quite a journey for “bitch.” But one thing’s for sure – bitch is still on its journey.

This chapter is a broad account of the experiences of the printmaker’s family home-cum-workshop in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, focusing on the role and status of women within these families and spaces. Weaving key examples throughout, it highlights the centrality of the family workshop in framing and encouraging women’s printed productions. However, it also exposes the gendered mechanisms at play within these overlapping commercial and domestic spaces.

Despite the degree to which the printmaking family facilitated and often encouraged women’s work, the small body of literature specifically focusing on printmaking families in the eighteenth century has often obscured the role of women within these workshops. Printmaking apprenticeships were largely closed to women in this period, and this chapter reveals that the family workshop gave many women an invaluable social and economic opportunity to work, to earn money, to create prints, and to forge an artistic identity. In turn, their labour was often crucial for the running of the family workshop, providing income but also enabling other relatives to fashion their own artistic identities in turn.

This chapter discusses the growing body of research that examines the social cognitive processes of jurors used when making verdict or sentencing decisions. This includes the empirical findings related to priming ideas and attitudes and impression formation. The chapter then discusses heuristics, or cognitive “shortcuts,” that jurors employ during their decision-making processes in trials and deliberations. For instance, there is a tendency for jurors to over-rely on dispositional attributions, stereotypes, and schemas. Cognitive biases that jurors are prone to, such as the hindsight bias, the outcome bias, and counterfactual thinking, will also be discussed in the context of evaluating evidence and making verdict decisions, along with the potential of debiasing techniques. Finally, jurors’ biases and prejudices regarding factors, such as race, gender, and religion, and how they relate to decision-making are examined. The chapter also addresses areas of social cognition that have not yet been explored in current research and provides recommendations for future directions.

This chapter will examine complex decisions relevant to family law. Decisions shaped by bias can lead to outcomes that place certain people and groups at an unfair disadvantage while placing others at an unjustified advantage. Implicit bias can have significant implications for outcomes in the legal system, including in family court. Although decision-makers might view themselves as free of bias, decades of research indicates that this is simply not the case. Though it is not possible to completely remove bias from decision-making, awareness can partially mitigate the harm of unconscious bias. In particular, the chapter will address family law decisions and decision-making bias in various domains, including bias in (1) credibility determinations, (2) gender, (3) sexual orientation and gender identity, (4) socioeconomic status, (5) intimate partner violence, and (6) substance use. The chapter will consider both psychological research and legal principles and identify areas where additional research needs to be conducted. Future research and/or policy implications will be discussed.