MIND BUGS

United-Way-of-La-Porte-County-Annual-Gala-Lip-Sync-Battle-2019 We are all susceptible to unconscious and involuntary attitudes and beliefs that play a role in how we perceive situations, other people, and even ourselves. These little mind bugs are hard to pin down or recognize because they work behind the scenes without any intention or animosity on our part. They may be positive or negative, but we can’t get away from them. As a matter of fact, we aren’t even aware of them. It’s hard to fight an enemy that you don’t know exists. These hidden biases are a direct result of a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes learned from media images, stories, jokes, and the people around us. We unconsciously pick up a lot of what we see and hear, and it’s nearly impossible to resist the pull toward culturally rooted stereotypes.

If you can be described by the default attributes of your society (the attributes that don’t need to be mentioned because they are assumed unless explicitly stated otherwise), you will be less likely to be stereotyped than others. This is probably why those who belong to their society’s “default” categories may see stereotyping as less of a problem – they are much less likely to be its victims. Those who lack these default characteristics are not only more likely to be stereotyped by others, but also by themselves. It’s common for them to undermine themselves. They may not take educational pathways, pursue certain careers, or reach toward other accomplishments because they believe those hidden thoughts about themselves. Stereotypes can have serious consequences; they can lead to violence, poor health outcomes, more contact with the courts, etc.

Our minds love to make associations. When we meet a person who has some of the same characteristics as others we know, our minds want to associate this new person with everything we know about others we think are like him or her. We have attitudes and beliefs about people from different age groups, ethnicities or races, income levels, religions, genders, etc. Of course, when we stop to think about it, we know that people in those groups can be vastly different. The problem is that we usually don’t stop to think about it, especially when we’re in a hurry or under stress. Our minds jump in with everything we know from past impressions and associate this new person with others we think are like him. When faced with otherwise ambiguous or confusing content, our brains try to quickly make sense of it by relying on associations we’ve stored in our memory. Importantly, these stored associations don’t have to be based on accurate and logical information. By just seeing concepts grouped together repeatedly, we can internalize associations that are skewed, distorted, and inaccurate.

Our minds process information in two ways; one is reflective thinking and the other is automatic associations. Given the serious consequences that so often result from unconscious bias, we need to do everything we can to keep these little bugs under control. The first step is to raise our awareness and learn about our own personal biases. A good place to start is with the Implicit Association Test (IAT) that is available online at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. Very eye-opening. You may be shocked to learn about the associations your brain is making on a regular basis. The IAT gives us a new awareness of the conflict between our conscious and unconscious thoughts/feelings and can result in some disturbing feeling. This self-knowledge can be very upsetting because it undermines the image we have of ourselves as largely fair and open-minded people. This distress is only of value if it can be put to good use. It’s up to each person to move beyond dismay and find ways to understand hidden biases and neutralize them before they translate into behavior. Our thoughts can be overruled.

A few helpful tips to keep unconscious biases from clouding your judgement are to slow down when making decisions so your reflective thinking has a chance to kick in. Spend time with lots of different people and things. The more diverse our experiences, the greater the range of assumptions we can make. Practice mindfulness and use strategies to reduce your stress levels. Surround yourself with images that are contrary to your biases. Lastly, it’s important to understand that our minds are elastic in the sense that they can easily return to old ways of thinking. We must continue to practice these interventions and challenge ourselves to expand our exposure.