As public awareness of implicit bias has grown in recent years, studies have raised important new questions about the nature of implicit bias effects. First, implicit biases are widespread and robust on average, yet are unstable across a few weeks. Second, young children display implicit biases indistinguishable from those of adults, which suggests to many that implicit biases are learned early. Yet, if implicit biases are unstable over weeks, how can they be stable for decades? Third, meta-analyses suggest that individual differences in implicit bias are associated weakly, although significantly, with individual differences in behavioral outcomes. Yet, studies of aggregate levels of implicit bias (i.e., countries, states, counties) are strongly associated with aggregate levels of disparities and discrimination. These puzzles are difficult to reconcile with traditional views, which treat implicit bias as an early-learned attitude that drives discrimination among individuals who are high in bias. We propose an alternative view of implicit bias, rooted in concept accessibility. Concept accessibility can, in principle, vary both chronically and situationally. The empirical evidence, however, suggests that most of the systematic variance in implicit bias is situational. Akin to the “wisdom of crowds” effect, implicit bias may emerge as the aggregate effect of individual fluctuations in concept accessibility that are ephemeral and context-dependent. This bias of crowds theory treats implicit bias tests as measures of situations more than persons. We show how the theory can resolve the puzzles posed and generate new insights into how and why implicit bias propagates inequalities.

中文翻译：

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人群的偏见：内隐偏见如何弥合个人和系统性偏见

近年来，随着公众对隐性偏见的意识增强，研究提出了有关隐性偏见效应的性质的重要新问题。首先，隐性偏见平均分布广泛且稳健，但在数周内仍不稳定。其次，幼儿表现出的隐性偏见与成年人的隐性偏见并没有区别，这向许多人暗示了隐性偏见是较早学习的。但是，如果隐性偏见在数周内不稳定，那么如何才能保持数十年呢？第三，荟萃分析表明，内隐偏见中的个体差异与行为结果的个体差异之间存在微弱的联系，尽管这种联系非常明显。然而，对隐性偏见的总体水平（即国家，州，县）的研究与差距和歧视的总体水平紧密相关。这些难题很难与传统观点相吻合，传统观点将隐性偏见视为一种早期学习的态度，这种态度会导致偏见程度高的个人之间产生歧视。我们提出了一种隐式偏见的替代视图，其根源于概念的可访问性。从概念上讲，概念的可访问性可能会在长期和情况上有所不同。但是，经验证据表明，隐性偏见中的大多数系统差异都是情境性的。类似于“人群的智慧”效应，隐含的偏见可能会出现，因为概念可及性的个体波动是短暂的且取决于上下文的，它们的合计效应会出现。人群理论的这种偏见将隐性偏见测试视为对情况的衡量标准，而不是对人的衡量标准。