EDSS 531

We've been assigned the task to pose some questions for discussion based on our reading this week.  Might as well put them on the blog.  Both questions come from a single reading:

From Understanding Unconscious Bias…….

 “…in ,many situations we are able to direct our behavior using our conscious attitudes – what we choose to believe or our stated values – rather than our ‘racial attitude on and unconscious level – the immediate, automatic associations that tumble out before we’ve even had time to think”.

Here’s the question:

The great objection I have to digital communication – twitter et. al. – is that it completely erases those  “automatic associations” that communicate what we unconsciously think and feel as opposed to what we school ourselves to think and feel.  My question then becomes, does that erasure make it better or worse?  Our we more or less able to internalize and make automatic the attitudes we want to cultivate in ourselves in a situation where those we are interacting are able to see and respond to only our “best face”?

Also from Undestanding Unconscious Bias:

Table 1 shows the time it takes a team composed of a white and black member to complete a task.  The teams were sorted by the existence of overt bias, no bias and covert bias on the part of the white member.   What accounts for the increased time to complete the task when the white team member exhibited covert bias?