Prof: Minds Crawl with Bugs

Are you being manipulated by hidden prejudices? Research by Mahzarin Banaji suggests you probably are.

On Friday afternoon, Banaji, the Cabot professor of social ethics in psychology, presented research about the prevalence of “mind bugs,” or implicit biases that prejudice people without their knowledge, to an audience representing a wide range of disciplines.

In one example of a study demonstrating prevalent perceptual biases, Banaji, who is also the Pforzheimer professor at the Radcliffe Institute, had the audience count the number of passes in a clip showing basketball players. The audience was so focused on the players that most did not see a woman with an umbrella walk through the game.

“Social biases are not that different from perceptual biases,” Banaji said. She said that people demonstrate similar blindness in their judgments of other people, ignoring the information that does not fit into their existing “theory.”

“The main question is ‘Can human beings be fair in their judgment of others?’” Banaji said, adding that putting aside prejudice is much harder than it seems because conscious knowledge of the prejudice is not enough to erase it.

Approaching the subject from a moral philosopher’s standpoint, panelist Tommie Shelby, the Loeb associate professor of social sciences and of African and African-American studies, pointed out that society relies heavily upon the impartiality of police officers, judges, and jury members. “Does such research warrant deep skepticism towards our criminal justice system?” Shelby asked.

In her discussion, Banaji pointed to studies that show hope for overcoming mind bugs. One such study found that having friends of other races can lower implicit bias. Another found that yoga practitioners in India were able to control and lower their biases consciously.

While the discussion began with an hour-long presentation by Banaji, showing the current research demonstrating the tendency to subconscious prejudices, the second hour was spent in a panel discussion where both the audience, Shelby, and the other panelist, Richard C. Lewontin ’51, Agassiz research professor, explored the implications of Banaji’s research.

The “mind bugs” lecture was part of the Humanities Center’s Faculty Conversations initiative, which brings together faculty from different fields to address interdisciplinary questions.

“We live with bias as an intellectual question and a day-to-day practical problem,” said Diana Sorensen, acting dean for the humanities and Rothenberg professor of Romance languages and literatures.