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The Hidden Mechanisms of Prejudice: Implicit Bias & Interpersonal Fluency

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The Hidden Mechanisms of Prejudice: Implicit Bias & Interpersonal Fluency The Hidden Mechanisms of Prejudice: Implicit Bias & Interpersonal Fluency Alex Madva Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 Alex Madva All rights reserved Abstract The Hidden Mechanisms of Prejudice: Implicit Bias and Interpersonal Fluency Alex Madva This dissertation is about prejudice. In particular, it examines the theoretical and ethical questions raised by research on implicit social biases. Social biases are termed “implicit” when they are not reported, though they lie just beneath the surface of consciousness. Such biases are easy to adopt but very difficult to introspect and control. Despite this difficulty, I argue that we are personally responsible for our biases and obligated to overcome them if they can bring harm to ourselves or to others. My dissertation addresses the terms of their removal. It is grounded in a comprehensive examination of empirical research and, as such, is a contribution to social psychology. Although implicit social biases significantly influence our judgment and action, they are not reducible to beliefs or desires. Rather, they constitute a class of their own. Understanding their particular character is vital to determining how to replace them with more preferable habits of mind. I argue for a model of interpersonal fluency, a kind of ethical expertise that requires transforming our underlying dispositions of thought, feeling, and action. Table of Contents List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………..v Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………..vi Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………x Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1: The Structure of Implicit Social Attitudes…………………………………………...14 I. Introduction: Madeleine meets Bob…………………………………………………...14 II. Logical Form and Belief……………………………………………………………...17 III. Treating Different as Same…………………………………………………………..24 IV. Treating Same as Different…………………………………………………………..26 V. Implications for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research……………………….32 VI. Objections……………………………………………………………………………36 VII. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..40 Chapter 2: The Formation and Change of Implicit Attitudes……………………………………41 I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………41 II. Implicit & Explicit Attitude Change: First Pass………………………………………44 III. An Alternative to BBC: Alief…………………………………………………………57 IV. EVIDENCE & Systems of Fast Learning……………………………………………...64 V. HABIT & Systems of Slow Learning………………………………………………….72 VI. Conclusion…..……………..………………………………………………………...80 Chapter 2 Appendix: The Intentional Content of Implicit Attitudes...…………………………..82 i I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………82 II. F-T-B-A Intentional Content………………………………………………………….82 II.A. Feature……………………………………………………………………...85 II.B. Tension……………………………………………………………………..86 II.C. Behavior……………………………………………………………………89 II.D Alleviation…………………….………………...…………………………..89 II.E Explaining the Phenomena………………………………………………….90 III. Rival Accounts of Content: From Modules to Mere Associations…………………..91 Chapter 3: Implicit Bias & Moral Responsibility………………………………………………..97 I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………97 II. The Case for Blamelessness…………………………………………………………101 III. Consciousness of Implicit Attitudes………………………………………………..110 IV. Consciousness, Reactive Attitudes, and Moods……………………………………114 V. Consciousness, Reactive Attitudes, and Implicit Bias………………………………119 VI. Consciousness and the Ability to Act Otherwise…………………………………..123 VII. SAME-AGENT Cases of Responsibility for Implicit Bias…………………………..130 VIII. DIFFERENT-AGENT Cases of Responsibility for Implicit Bias…………………….135 IX. Conclusion: Responsibility without Finger-Pointing and Name-Calling…………..142 Chapter 4: Toward the Virtue of Interpersonal Fluency………………………………………..145 I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..145 II. 3 Proposals for Overcoming Bias……………………………………………………148 ii II.A. Spreading Knowledge…………………………………………………….149 II.B. Strengthening Self-Control………………………………………………..158 II.C. Reconfiguring Contexts…………………………………………………...165 III. Interpersonal Fluency in Outline…………………………………………………...173 III.A. Egalitarian Agency on the Model of Linguistic Fluency………………...174 III.B. Category-Access Component of Interpersonal Fluency………………….176 III.C. Affective-Behavioral Component of Interpersonal Fluency….………….177 III.D. Self-Directed and Other-Directed Aspects of Interpersonal Fluency……179 IV. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….184 Chapter 5: Virtue & Social Knowledge………………………………………………………...186 I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..186 II. A Moral-Epistemic Dilemma?.......………………………………………………….188 III. The Aims of Knowledge……………………………………………………………190 IV. The Right Thought at the Wrong Time?……………….…………………………...195 V. Primer on Accessibility……………………………………………………………...197 VI. The Malleability of Accessibility: Concrete Strategies…………………………….201 VII. Tragic Cases?……..………...……………………………………………………..211 Chapter 5 Appendix: Interpersonal Fluency: an Untraditional Virtue………………………….219 I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..219 II. Elastic and Unstable Dispositions…………………………………………………...219 III. Ambient Harmony: Fluency as the Fuel that Forges Unity………………………...228 IV. Internal Disharmony………………………………………………………………..231 iii V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..234 References………………………………………………………………………………………236 iv List of Figures 1. Shooter Task Illustrations………………………………………………………………….27-28 2. Graph of Explicit Attitude Change in Rydell et al. (2007, 872)………………………………50 3. Graph of Implicit Attitude Change in Rydell et al. (2007, 873)………………………………51 4. Illustration of Science-Fiction Cues in Virtual Classroom in Cheryan et al. (2011, 1828)….166 5. Illustration of Neutral Cues in Virtual Classroom in Cheryan et al. (2011, 1828)….……….167 6. Theatrical Poster for Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, by Kazuhiko (1983)……....168 v Acknowledgments I am incredibly grateful for the help and support I’ve received. Never was so much owed by so few to so many. I’d like to thank my adviser Christia Mercer, whose class Philosophy & Feminism, and particularly the lectures on Judith Butler’s notion of performativity, were a primary source of inspiration for my conception of interpersonal fluency, and for this project as a whole. Christia’s initial support for the project and unwavering confidence that I “had an idea” kept me going through periods of self-doubt, and her insightful feedback made this a much better monograph. I cannot overestimate the extent of Taylor Carman’s influence on my philosophical development. I didn’t end up writing a dissertation on Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty, but Taylor’s phenomenological approach forms the “background understanding” of much what I do. My discussions of moods, embodied skills, and intentional content clearly bear his imprint, and I have also benefited greatly from his comments on drafts. John Morrison swooped into Barnard’s philosophy department like a deus ex machina at a point when my writing had stagnated, and started doling out deadlines. He read several of the earliest drafts that were to evolve into the first two chapters, and constantly pushed me to see the philosophical forest through the psychological trees. John first mentioned that my ideas sounded similar to Tamar Gendler’s concept of “alief,” and arranged for me to meet Tamar when she visited his seminar in the spring of 2009. I asked Tamar during that meeting if she’d mind my sending her something that summer. 80-odd pages later, she became my mentor away from home. I was visiting New Haven almost every other week to discuss developments in philosophy and psychology. It was an intellectually vi thrilling and fertile experience, and a lot of fun. Tamar’s work integrating empirical literature with the metaphysics of mind and practical concerns about how to live remains the gold standard for what I aspire to produce. Her feedback on my dissertation and on my co-writings with Michael Brownstein has been enormously helpful. Michael, a fellow pupil of Taylor’s and inheritor of Hubert Dreyfus’ spin on the phenomenological tradition, has been an amazing collaborator—and not just because his philosophical intuitions are correct roughly 85%-95% of the time. Co-writing with Michael has been a joy, and I look forward to working together on future projects, including empirical research on the questions I investigate in this dissertation. Michael’s feedback on drafts has been invaluable, and I draw on ideas we developed together in the Appendices to Chapters 2 and 5. Michael and I have also had the recent pleasure of forming a reading group with Virginia Valian, which has vastly enriched my grasp of some of the core psychological phenomena I discuss in what follows. Valian’s work on gender bias was just about the first thing I read when I set out on this project, and I am grateful that she is now a reader on my committee. In many ways, this project aspires to be the “affective-motivational” complement to her “cognitive” explanation for gender inequality. I’d like to thank Pat Kitcher for her feedback and support, sometimes from a great distance. I relied on her background in philosophy of psychology and ethics to figure out the early contours of the project, as she guided me toward must-reads in ethics and cognitive psychology. Having a Kantian on board kept some of my Aristotelian and empiricist sympathies in check. I thank Jenny Saul for insightful and encouraging comments on a précis of what became Chapter
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