Controlling bias, prejudice and stereotyping – Jun 5, 2012

A panel discussion on what the research tells us and what we can do about it.

June 5th, 2012, 3:00-5:00pm
Liu Institute for Global Issues Multipurpose Room

Speaker: Gordon B. Moskowitz, Lehigh University, Psychology Department

Discussants: 

• Blye Frank, Dean, UBC Faculty of Education
• Cheryl Ward, Provincial Lead, Provincial Health Services Authority Indigenous Cultural Competency Training Program
• Heather Frost, UBC Centre for Health Education Scholarship (CHES)Sanzida Habib, UBC Centre for Race Autobiography Gender and Age (RAGA)
• Jennifer Grewing, Norwegian Centre for Minority Health Research (NAKMI), Oslo University Hospital, Ullevål

Moderator: Shafik Dharamsi, Faculty Associate in Residence, Liu Institute for Global Issues

Abstract:

Most people are not trained to stereotype, but naively learn stereotypes through processes of socialization. Why are stereotypes so often used, and why does this happen even when we do not realize we stereotype, indeed even when we are confident we do not and would not? The recent rise of fields such as behavioral economics, social neuroscience, behavioral medicine, and legal psychology each have ties to the 50 year old literature on the psychology of bias and the manner in which judgment, decision making, and behavior is impacted by forces we do not recognize and that operate outside conscious awareness, not open to accurate introspection. While we may be open to accepting there is bias in our financial decisions and perception of physical objects, we resist the extension of this idea to the domain of interpersonal bias and stereotyping. When we do embrace the possibility of prejudice, most people are motivated to counteract or control this bias – they do not wish to stereotype or exhibit prejudice, and strive to compensate for their bias. How accurate are these attempts at control? What strategies of pursuing these goals will create undesired consequences, perhaps ironically increasing bias? The case of stereotyping in the medical context is unusual because stereotypes are not incidentally learned, but aspects of them are explicitly taught – these are base rates that connect social groups with predisposition to disease and cultural competencies taught as part of a practitioner’s training. It is proposed that learning about accurate stereotypes that are useful for one’s work often leads to undesired consequences associated with those stereotypes that contribute to health disparity. And these processes, as with bias outside the medical domain, are not aware to practitioners and are thus difficult to control. Yet control, as with bias outside the medical domain, is possible.

Co-hosted by:
Liu Institute for Global Issues’ Global Health Network, Centre for Relationship Based Care, Faculty of Education, Institute for Aboriginal Health, Centre for Health Education Scholarship, Centre for Intercultural Communication, and the Centre for Race Autobiography Gender and Age.