By Science News
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Clothing divas have fashion week, film enthusiasts have Sundance and for science journalists there’s the New Horizons in Science — a four-day meeting of presentations and field trips that provide an in-depth look at cutting-edge research in fields from genomics to psychology. Sponsored by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, the annual conference is being held in Palo Alto, Calif., this year. Here’s a sampling of research discussed on Day One, October 26:
Powerful, if subconscious, biases
Tall men are more likely to run corporations than shorter men, people with good teeth make more money — these are just some manifestations of the biases that shape decision making in our daily lives. While rational thinking is supposed to be a hallmark of being human, from a young age people develop implicit attitudes that cloud their thinking, says psychologist and neuroscientist Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard University. “To what extent do they leak into our behavior, unbeknownst to us?” Banaji asks. She has recently been investigating this question using conjoint analysis, a technique that asks a volunteer to choose between two scenarios with several variables, such as living in San Francisco while making $35,000 per year with a strict boss named Jennifer versus living in Detroit while making $40,000 per year with a relaxed boss named Jason. Changing the variables in the questionnaire and running several iterations revealed that the majority of participants “chose” to make $3,400 less, on average, to work under a male boss. Yet when the subjects were asked directly if their supervisor’s gender was important the answer was a resounding “no,” Banaji reports.
Putting emphasis on variables that, consciously at least, we do not think are important, can have serious implications on decision making, says Banaji, citing studies showing how race influences people’s perceptions of how “American” someone is, including current presidential candidates. Can we fight these subconscious biases? “Yes, they are elastic,” says Banaji. But are they plastic? Can we consciously remold our thinking to eliminate these biases? She’s not sure. “That work needs to be done,” she says. Try taking a test at https://implicit.Harvard.edu. —Rachel Ehrenberg