Subtle Forms Of Bias Research Articles

Confirming Bias Without Knowing? Automatic Pathways Between Media Exposure and Selectivity

This study moves beyond previous research by demonstrating how prior exposure to stereotypical content can reinforce the selection of comparable biased news content and by clarifying its intergroup and interpersonal consequences. With two experiments ( N = 236, N = 270), we show that media effects and selectivity of biased media content about Arabic migrant workers are connected by automatic (i.e., implicit) stereotypes. The findings reveal that exposure to moderate doses of stereotypic news primes affects the selection of biased news via implicit stereotypes and subsequently shifts intergroup and interpersonal outcomes in the direction of the activated biased beliefs. These effects did not surface for high doses of stereotypic news primes, suggesting that individuals resist and inhibit activation processes when exposure is perceived to be too extreme. As subtle forms of bias are omnipresent in news environments and implicit stereotypes operate partly under the radar of conscious awareness, they may affect selection without individuals being aware of it. The findings imply that audiences’ biased selectivity should not be seen in isolation from prior media exposure.

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias

Can raising awareness of racial bias subsequently reduce that bias? We address this question by exploiting the widespread media attention highlighting racial bias among professional basketball referees that occurred in May 2007 following the release of an academic study. Using new data, we confirm that racial bias persisted in the years after the study’s original sample but prior to the media coverage. Subsequent to the media coverage, though, the bias disappeared. Several potential mechanisms may have produced this result, including voluntary behavior changes by individual referees, adjustments by players to new information, and changes in referee behavior due to institutional pressure. These results suggest a new kind of Hawthorne effect in which greater scrutiny of even subtle forms of bias can bring about meaningful change. This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.

The systematic study of how subtle forms of bias related to prosocial behavior operate in racial and gender relations

Psychological research and theory have traditionally focused on bias and conflict between separate groups. Our central thesis is that the processes that shape hierarchical group relations within a society are distinctive and typically operate in ways that are frequently subtle rather than blatant. The challenges of detecting new subtle forms of bias are receiving considerable attention in the field of social psychology, internationally. Although explicit hostility toward minority groups seems to have faded in modern societies, cross-cultural data show that the status, resources, and the power of women and ethnic/racial minorities remain unequal. The present literature review integrates the findings of cross-cultural research showing the role of paternalistic legitimizing ideas and behavior for establishing, maintaining, and reinforcing group hierarchy and the disadvantage of members of traditionally underrepresented groups. Specifically, we explain how intergroup helping relations can be used as a mechanism to maintain social advantage in racial and gender relations. These theoretical and experimental insights help illuminate the dynamics of relations between socially linked groups and the nature of contemporary bias. We also highlight how this perspective suggests novel and productive directions for future research.

The Relative Contribution of Subjective Office Referrals to Racial Disproportionality in School Discipline

Objective: In order to improve our understanding of where to target interventions, the study examined the extent to which school discipline disproportionality between African American and White students was attributable to teachers’ decisions regarding subjectively versus non-subjectively defined behaviors. Method: The sample consisted of office discipline referral (ODR) records for 1,154,686 students enrolled in 1,824 US schools. Analyses compared the relative contributions of disproportionality in ODRs for subjectively and objectively defined behaviors to overall disproportionality, controlling for relevant school characteristics. Results: Results showed that disproportionality in subjective ODRs explained the vast majority of variance in total disproportionality. Conclusions: These findings suggest that providing educators with strategies to neutralize the effects of implicit and other subtle forms of bias, which are known to influence ambiguous and discretionary decisions, may be a promising avenue for achieving equity in school discipline.

INVITED PAPER: Customer and consumer confidence in the livestock industry—Professional ethics

ABSTRACT Close relationships between university scientists and research sponsors or other commercial interests increase the probability that research bias or conflict of interest (COI) will arise in the research process. University researchers can limit the chances that obvious or subtle forms of bias or COI will occur by (1) carefully managing relationships with sponsors and external parties; (2) using research practices that ensure unbiased management of data and publications; and (3) appreciating that bias and COI also occur when researchers begin to assume roles as experts in both public and sponsored venues. Specific good management practices to avoid COI or bias include (1) following institutional polices; (2) frequent self-evaluation; (3) seeking independent program assessment; and (4) reporting potential COI in publications. Drawing on examples from sales and marketing of specialized feed technologies, areas where the industry should increase its focus on training and mentoring to minimize opportunities for ethical conflicts include (1) emphasizing the importance of the quality and relevance of supporting data used for promoting product sales; (2) strengthening supplier training on products and technologies in the context of fair and ethical positioning, so that opportunities for both ethical lapses and misunderstandings are decreased; (3) reinforcing the importance of confidentiality in maintaining customer trust in suppliers; and (4) increasing recognition of COI as it can occur between consultants and their clients for recommendations of technologies in which the consultant has undisclosed financial interest.

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias

Can raising awareness of racial bias subsequently reduce that bias? We address this question by exploiting the widespread media attention highlighting racial bias among professional basketball referees that occurred in May 2007 following the release of an academic study. Using new data, we confirm that racial bias persisted in the years after the study's original sample, but prior to the media coverage. Subsequent to the media coverage though, the bias completely disappeared. We examine potential mechanisms that may have produced this result and find that the most likely explanation is that upon becoming aware of their biases, individual referees changed their decision-making process. These results suggest that raising awareness of even subtle forms of bias can bring about meaningful change.

Subclinical Bias, Manners, and Moral Harm

Mundane and often subtle forms of bias generate harms that can be fruitfully understood as akin to the harms evident in rudeness. Although subclinical expressions of bias are not mere rudeness, like rudeness they often manifest through the breach of mannerly norms for social cooperation and collaboration. At a basic level, the perceived harm of mundane forms of bias often has much to do with feeling oneself unjustly or arbitrarily cut out of a group, a group that cooperates and collaborates but does not do so with me. Appealing to the subtle but familiar choreography of mannered social interaction, I argue, makes it easier to recognize how exclusion can be accomplished through slight but symbolically significant gestures and styles of interaction, where bias manifests not in announced hostility but in an absence of the cooperation and collaboration upon which we rely socially.

Regulating Public Space on the Beachfronts of Rio de Janeiro*

.Despite the fortification of buildings, streets, and public squares, Rio de Janeiro's beaches remain widely regarded as democratic spaces of social diversity and accessibility. Our study revisits the question of Rio's “democratic” beachfronts, based on local interviews, field observations, official reports, and newspaper accounts. We focus on historical and contemporary perceptions of planning, privatization, and public‐order programs on the city's southern seaside. Institutional discourses have justified increasing regulation to combat threats of disorder and insecurity. While residents value the relative openness of beachfronts, they also acknowledge issues of safety, social segmentation, and subtle forms of bias. The public generally applauds recent “Shock of Order” policing and commercial revitalization, although critics lament the loss of traditional freedoms for informal beach vendors and casual sports. These paradoxes highlight enduring tensions between social order and hierarchy on one hand, and democratic rights and equality on the other.

An analysis of specialty journals on alcohol, drugs and addictive behaviors for sex bias in research methods and reporting.

Several studies have considered the extent to which gender bias has characterized addictions treatment research over the past 20 years. Sex bias in this literature has been shown to be most apparent in a reliance on male subjects and representation of male experience as normative. The current study was undertaken to assess the current status of some basic aspects of gender bias in addictions research generally. Articles appearing in 1990 in 17 specialty journals on alcohol, drugs and addictive behaviors were coded with respect to type of article and the gender of the primary investigator. Studies on human subjects also were evaluated with regard to subject selection and reporting practices. Although the proportion of females represented in addictions research was found to have increased over earlier historical periods, studies using only male subjects were still common in 1990. Moreover, in studies using subjects of mostly one sex, investigators were likely to provide legitimate reasons for studying females, but provide no rationale for using male samples. Other subtle forms of bias were identified. For example, many single-sex studies (especially those using all male subjects) did not indicate the gender of the sample in the title or abstract of the study, and did not indicate that results of the study could be generalized to only one gender. Male biased sampling and misleading reporting of findings continue to be evident in addictions research. The need for gender-sensitive research in the field of addictions is discussed, and suggestions for change are offered.

Insurance Redlining and the Process of Discrimination

Insurance redlining and the racially discriminatory consequences of the sale of property insurance have been documented in several cities throughout the United States. In this study teams of “testers”—comparably qualified insurance consumers who differed only in the racial composition of the neighborhood of the homes they sought to insure—contacted three Milwaukee area insurance companies regarding the possibility of purchasing insurance for their homes. Though no blatantly discriminatory behavior was exhibited, agents representing these companies expressed a clear preference to pursue business in white communities and placed additional barriers in the way of testers from nonwhite neighborhoods. These findings parallel changes in other institutional sectors of the housing industry where blatantly discriminatory behavior has generally given way to more subtle forms of bias. Policy recommendations are offered to reduce existing racial disparities in the availability of insurance and to open up housing markets in general for minorities.