What Bias Do I Need To Address Now?
Pragya Agarwal’s book Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias reminded me of the time a few years ago when I took the Implicit Association Test (IAT) from Harvard’s Project Implicit. With my conviction that all people are created in the image of God and are equally worthy of love and life, I thought I would achieve neutrality. Instead, I received “Your responses suggested a moderate automatic preference for European American people over African American people” [1]. The insight was that even though I have this desire for and deeply-held belief in equality, I also carry some unconscious preferences or biases, which are vital to acknowledge and address.
Agarwal’s work explores the science behind the biases that people carry in life. Her purpose in writing, as a behavioural and data-scientist, builds on her core work of cultivating stronger gender equity. The data works to gain insight for numerous biases other than gender that shape how information is shared, and received in human minds and systems. These include
- implicit bias,
- confirmation bias,
- loss-aversion bias,
- hindsight bias,
- gender, racial, accent, and attractiveness biases, as well as
- ageism and
- bias in technology.
- She then addresses the moral conundrum in Part 4 [2].
At this time in history, it is good to reflect on how our prejudices, likes, affinities, and disassociations from others reinforces a worldview that promotes tribalism with others who think, look and act “like me”. Acknowledging this, Agarwal proposes that this may be an evolutionary reflex helping us to survive, stating “Our unconscious biases could therefore be seen as adaptive mechanisms” [3].
But in looking beyond evolutionary shaping, her point is well taken that this cultural moment seems to feed bias. She writes,
As we move increasingly towards a tech- and data-driven society and communicate largely via social media channels, an understanding of our echo chambers, groupthink and filter bubbles becomes crucial. This will help us understand how our implicit biases shape the way information is now being shared, what information we trust, and how the way we create content and spread it reinforces the systemic biases that are entrenched in our society [4].
I will explore Agarwal’s argument for the unconscious mental processes, and then conclude with some reflections on de-biasing.
Agarwal credits Anthony Greenwald for introducing implicit bias in 2006, which “refuted the long-standing belief that humans are guided solely by explicit beliefs and by their conscious intentions” [5]. What does guide these biases, she continues, is what is colloquially known as ‘gut feeling’ – where we use emotions to make snap decisions [6]. This comes from ‘dual process theory’, where System 1 is the unconscious reasoning, and System 2 is the more rational and logical system [7]. This theory explains “how we often can’t tell exactly which rule our intuition is using”, especially when “we are rushed, stressed and relying on gut instinct (which is automatic and subconscious), [amd] there is no time to deploy the slower and more deliberate System 2” [8].
The Psychologist / Economist Daniel Kahneman, in his framing of the two systems in Thinking: Fast and Slow, personifies this battle between the two systems as between “the experiencing self and the the remembering self” [9]. The formation of stereotypes and biases are like habits, based on our experiences, and not on our underlying rational thoughts and beliefs.
My beliefs are strong. For instance, I want my life to align with Jesus’ manifesto: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’” (Luke 4:18-19) But I may have stereotypes that I must address if I am to draw near to people living with these dynamics.
The recognition of bias must never become an excuse for shoulder-shrugging apathy. Instead, naming biases helps to indicate what may require active intervention, so that unconscious prejudices, preferences, or disassociations can be what Agarwal calls “de-biased” [10].
Agarwal proposes that we work towards de-biasing by adopting “a three-pronged approach of de-automatization, perspective-taking and active denigration” [11]. I liken this to fighting to raise the image-bearing of God in another person. Whatever bias emerges must become a “thought that is taken captive”, a phrase used by the Apostle Paul when his own leadership motives were misjudged (2 Corinthians 10:5). Two verses later, he would invite others to ‘stop judging by appearances’ (10:7). This is the pathway to a flourishing society. But it will require slowing down, accessing System 2 in the brain, and forming new habits.
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[1] “Take a Test.” n.d. Accessed March 27, 2025. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatouchtest.html.
[2] Pragya Agarwal, Sway: Unraveling Unconscious Bias, (Bloomsbury Sigma Series. London ; New York: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020).
[3] Sway, 44.
[4] Sway, 407.
[5] Sway, 16.
[6] Sway, 29.
[7] Sway, 29.
[8] System 1 is “mostly involuntary and often independent of working memory – which means that we don’t have time to exercise our cognitive rational thinking. It is rapid, more subjective, and value-, context- and domain-specific”. Sway, 29, 30.
[9] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, (Doubleday Canada, 2011), intro.
[10] Sway, 413.
[11] Sway, 413.
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