Page 147 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

The Relationship of Implicit Bias to Microaggressions 121

THE RELATIONSHIP OF IMPLICIT BIAS
TO MICROAGGRESSIONS

The transformation of Whiteness to racism and the social/cultural condition-
ing described above have broad scholarly support (Banks, 2004; Cortes, 2004;
Jones, 1997; Ridley, 2005). One of the questions we posed at the beginning of
this chapter was how and why people become unintentional oppressors. Why
do they have biases and prejudices? If White Americans experience them-
selves as good, moral, and decent human beings, why would they engage
in racial microaggressions that harm others? It is clear from our analysis that
Whites are unwitting victims in a social conditioning process that imbues
within them biased racial attitudes; many biases exist outside the level of
awareness because they are deeply embedded in the psyche and made invis-
ible. As a society, we have come a long way in recognizing our racist heritage
and have actively sought to deal with the overt and obvious manifestations
of racism. While we have had success in reducing overt and explicit forms of
bias and discrimination, we have been less successful in eradicating covert or
implicit forms (Baron & Banaji, 2006; Boysen & Vogel, 2008).
Studies on racial microaggressions (microinsults and microinvalidations)
suggest that they are implicit in nature and, therefore, less prone to change
over time than explicit expressions (Sue, Capodilupo, et al., 2007; Sue,
Capodilupo, Nadal, & Torino, 2008; Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007).
There is some evidence supporting this conjecture in the “ implicit attitudes ”
studies in social psychology (Baron & Banaji, 2006; Greenwald, McGhee, &
Schwartz, 1998). The traditional measurement of biases, stereotypes, and prej-
udices comes primarily from conscious self - reports in which participants are

directly asked about their attitudes toward specific social groups. These meth-

ods are prone to the influence of social desirability and political correctness,
and they do not adequately tap the underlying implicit attitudes that are
outside conscious awareness (Sue, 2003). In the fi eld of social psychology,
implicit measurement of bias relies on having people make decisions or
judgments that avoid conscious introspection. One such instrument is the
Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT) in which reaction time in associating a target
group with positive and negative qualities is measured. It is possible to
measure pro - White and anti - Black implicit attitudes, for example, using
the IAT.
In viewing the conversion model outlined above, it is clear that explicit
attitude (conscious) and implicit attitude (unconscious) are subject to the

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