The Underlying Mechanisms of Implicit Bias A Multifaceted Account

This paper delves into the dark side of the mind. I am interested in the underlying mechanism of implicit bias. Implicit biases are implicit attitudes that conflict with our informed beliefs, leading to prejudiced feelings, stereotyped thoughts and ultimately discriminatory behaviours. Despite receiving much attention in philosophy and psychology, the mechanism by which these biases are formed is controversial. In this paper, I review the proposed models—association-based, belief-based and mental imagery-based—and suggest that these models can be reconciled in a multifaceted account. My argument relies primarily on debiasing interventions. If implicit biases are triggered by only one mechanism, experimental manipulations based on other mechanisms will fail to modify implicitly biased behaviour. However, manipulations involving each of the proposed models successfully modify biased behaviour. Thus, implicit bias has a multifaceted character, i.e., all three models have something to say in explaining the mechanisms hidden in the implicitly biased behaviour.