ABSTRACT
This work reviews a social cognition model of bias reduction that teaches people who may exhibit bias toward minorities about the pervasiveness of bias, their complicity in and personal responsibility towards structural inequities, and how to act on this increased awareness of bias. The focus is on how to use psychological research to educate people and train them to reduce bias without introducing a threat to their moral integrity and without creating inappropriate norms that equate the pervasiveness of implicit bias with the acceptability of such bias. It also recognizes the importance of doing more than creating positive attitudes and good intentions through heightened awareness, drawing on literature from social cognition on how to promote action from attitudes, beliefs, and intentions. Our intervention is aimed at the people who may inadvertently and unknowingly contribute to bias in a domain, such as health care (where medical students, doctors, nursing students, and nurses may be unaware of disparate treatment of patients). We recognize that our approach does not address the equally important goal of empowering stigmatized people (such as Black and Hispanic patients) to use effective bias-reducing strategies during their interactions with the powerful (such as a health care provider). This approach is focused instead on uncomfortable questions about personal and structural bias to be raised against those in power, even if the power and bias is unrecognized by these individuals. Steps to minimize threat are not taken to make these individuals more comfortable, but to adhere to psychological principles of how to increase persuasion and goal achievement. Key Terms: Intervention, Bias reduction, Control, Backlash, Defensiveness, Motivated Reasoning, Feedback, Bias awareness, Social cognition, Stereotyping, Prejudice, Implicit bias
