The Hidden Mechanisms of Prejudice: Implicit Bias & Interpersonal Fluency Alex Madva Submitted ...

269 Pages·2012·1.19 MB·English

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
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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
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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
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V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..234

References………………………………………………………………………………………236

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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

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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
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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 5, and for organizing the Implicit Bias and Philosophy Workshop at the University of
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