Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2013

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 4

Chapters 5-7

Chapter 8

Appendixes 1-2

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Appendixes 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Appendix 1 Summary: “Are Americans Racist?”

In the first appendix of the book, the authors examine studies of racial attitudes over the past century. They do so in order to demonstrate why scientists believe racism—although perhaps harder to see and less overt—still exists in modern society. The earliest studies into discrimination begin in the 1920s, when sociologist Emory Bogardus found that over half of his respondents did not want to come into any contact with several “races” (170)—an umbrella term Bogardus used for 40 different nationalities, ethnicities, and racial groups. Another test a few years later from Louis L. Thurston found similar “attitudes” (175)—a psychology term just then coming into use—among white male respondents, who answered that they preferred Americans over 19 other groups. A chart created by the authors combining the findings from both Bogardus and Thurston shows that attitudes toward the least-liked groups, which included “Negro,” “Turks,” “Hindu,” “Japanese,” and ”Chinese,”(174) were particularly negative. In the late 1920s, E.D. Hinckley’s “Attitude Toward the Negro scale” (173) reaffirmed these findings, although it exclusively centered on African Americans.

Research into racial attitudes after the 1950s began to shift, as it came to focus primarily on “Black-White relations” (175). Researchers administered the same survey questions every year between 1960 and 2000 to track changing attitudes. Responses showed that Americans increasingly endorsed interracial schools and neighborhoods over time. However, they mostly continued to oppose the idea that the government should assist African Americans, or that it has a “special obligation” (176) to help after centuries of discrimination. Scientists have mixed interpretations to the survey results, with some concluding discrimination has largely disappeared.

In this “principled conservative view” (178), the negative responses about government intervention is understood as a result of America’s “level playing field” (178). Equal opportunities are provided to all, so assistance is unwarranted. However, the majority of social scientists are in the “covert bias camp” (178), believing the results show bias still exists but in a more covert form than previously. The disagreement remains unsettled. A more recent study attempting to resolve the debate between the two camps failed to come to a concrete conclusion. The survey asked respondents questions about assistance to both women and Black Americans in ways that could have been misinterpreted. The authors conclude that both the principled conservative view and the covert bias view “seem viable” (179) because they don’t necessarily contradict one another.

Starting in the 1970s, researchers began to devise methods that didn’t entirely rely on asking questions. These studies were based on earlier findings from the 1930s. In 1934, Richard LaPiere toured the country with a Chinese couple. They were given accommodations in hundreds of places and turned away from only one. However, when LaPiere sent out a survey asking the same places if they would accommodate Chinese guests, 90% responded they would not. Although there were flaws in the study, it demonstrated the importance of “behavior observation” (180) in conjunction with asking questions. Another study in the 1930s by African American psychologists Mamie and Kenneth Clark showed that given the choice of a Black doll or a white doll, two-thirds of young Black children chose the white doll. Like LaPiere’s study, the Clarks’ “doll studies” (181)—as they came to be known—were “unobtrusive method studies” (181). Participants were unaware that their actions were being observed or that it was being done to better understand racial attitudes.

In the 1970s, studies of discrimination began to gravitate toward unobtrusive methods. The first such studies were designed to determine if white people would assist Black people to the same extent they helped other white people. A study by Samuel Gaertner and Leonard Bickman found that Black callers asking white recipients to help them out with their car by calling a local garage received less help than white callers alleging to be in the same predicament. Dozens of other similar studies followed using unobtrusive methods. In 1980, social psychologists Faye Crosby, Stephanie Bromley, and Leonard Saxe concluded—after reviewing many of these studies—that unobtrusive methods revealed more discriminatory behavior than survey results. This was especially true when the helper and recipient did not come into contact with one another. However, after 1980, researchers became more reluctant to observe people without their consent. Unobtrusive method studies dramatically waned but still crop up occasionally.

The Appendix concludes by returning to the question asked in the section’s title: “Are Americans racist?” (184). Indications that they are not come in the form of the survey responses, in which Americans generally do not appear to support segregation, as well as the egalitarian ideals—which outlaw discrimination—written into American law and adopted by institutions. Social pressures, in the form of “political correctness” (185), also reveal that there are consequences to discriminatory rhetoric and behavior. Many celebrities have received negative publicity and been fired for their inflammatory rhetoric. While the authors feel it would be wrong to describe Americans as “racists”(186), at least not by the standards of the past, they argue that discrimination persists. The racial bias is comprised of two types of hidden biases: one type that are conscious but suppressed due to social pressures like political correctness, and another that are hidden to those that possess them. These are the biases measured in the IAT. When combined, the authors believe the two types of hidden biases “contribute more to discrimination in America” (187) than the overt bias of a small and decreasing minority.

Appendix 2 Summary: “Race, Disadvantage, and Discrimination”

In Appendix 2, the authors explain that—although they have discussed other types of bias in the book—they have focused primarily on race discrimination. The reasons are due to its “societal importance” (189) as well as the fact that more research has been done on it than other type of bias. The purpose of the second appendix is to examine the extent to which racial discrimination exists and its purported causes, as deduced from scientific research. The authors put together a list of established conclusions about racial discrimination from two dozen of their colleagues. These conclusions are concretely agreed upon without question.

The first conclusion on the list is that Black disadvantage does, in fact, exist. In relation to white Americans, Black Americans experience “inferior outcomes” (190) in nearly every facet of society, including income, education, employment, the justice system, and housing. There are two sets of theories about the causes of Black disadvantage. The “group-responsible” (190) set holds Black Americans entirely responsible for their situation. It can be further divided into two types of theories. The first are “biological” (191) theories, which trace problems to genetics. The second are “cultural” (191) theories, which place blame on Black American culture for its problems.

The second type of theory about causes of Black disadvantage are the “others-responsible” (190) set, which blames numerous “‘others’ as culprits” (192). The most established theory casts blame on “deliberate, overt race discrimination” (192). A second theory blames hidden bias while a third credits institutional racism—namely “government, schools, courts, hospitals, and corporations” (192)—for the problem. Institutional racism as a cause is an “undeniable historical fact” (192). Jim Crow laws that mandated segregation of Black and white Americans only came to an end with civil rights laws in the 1960s. The authors argue, however, that institutional racism did not necessarily cease to exist in the aftermath.

While the unobtrusive-measure studies of the 1970s showed that white Americans consistently helped other whites more than Blacks in low-stakes situations, other studies using similar methods began to examine situations where the stakes were much higher. The first area of significant research focused on housing discrimination. National audits conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the late 1970s, and again in 1989 and 2000, found Blacks and Hispanics faced discrimination when renting or buying property as well as when trying to obtain insurance or mortgage loans. The difficulties these groups faced were often part of a deliberate practice known as redlining. Redlining, which is now illegal, was designed to keep neighborhoods racially homogenous. In the audit tests, white testers were consistently favored when trying to rent or buy property, although the amount they were favored had decreased by the time of the 2000 audit.

A similar auditing method has been used to measure discrimination in hiring practices, though no tests have been done on a national level. The “net estimates” (195) of these audits found that Black and Hispanic job applicants faced discrimination in hiring practices. A study sent resumes with equal credentials to companies and found that those bearing names identified with Black Americans were less likely to receive a call back than those bearing names identified with white Americans. Another study in which white and Black applicants applied in person for a job requiring only a high school education again found that white applicants were more likely to be called back. Those with a criminal record were also more likely to be called in for an interview than Black applicants without a criminal record.

According to the authors, another area where racial discrimination is evident is in healthcare. A 2002 study conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that Black Americans and other minority groups did not receive the same level of medical care as white Americans. This was the case even when white and Black Americans had the same socioeconomic status. The study found Black Americans did not receive the same number of routine screenings, surgeries, dialysis, and organ transplants, and were prescribed less medicine for pain.

The criminal justice system also displays evidence of discrimination. The American prison population is 40% Black while they only comprise 12% of the population. However, it may be difficult to draw concrete conclusions from this statistic, so the authors provide results of a 2006 Department of Justice (DOJ) survey of 76,910 drivers age 16 or older. The survey found that Black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be ticketed for speeding than white drivers and also more likely to be searched. It is not clear in these cases if the bias is part of deliberate discrimination practices or the result of hidden biases. Additional areas of discrimination discussed by the authors are in price quotes for automobiles—with Black testers more likely to be quoted higher prices than white testers of equal credibility—and tips for both taxi drives and wait staff. Studies have shown that Black cab drivers and waiters were given smaller tips by both white and Black customers.

After having established disadvantages for Black Americans exists, the authors move on to the second conclusion: that race discrimination is partly responsible. In the many studies that have been conducted, researchers ruled out all other possible causes for observed disadvantages to Blacks—leaving racial discrimination as the only culprit. The findings on discrimination are important because they are considered statistically significant—which means the outcome is consequential. Sometimes the consequences appear small, but when discrimination is repeated enough times or to many people, it can cause significant damage. For example, if members of minority groups are repeatedly denied promotions or raises over a long period of time, the cumulative loss of income may be substantial. Similarly, if one person is denied the ability to vote, it may not seem problematic, but if many are denied, it may alter the outcome of the election.

The authors then provide a list of all of their conclusions, repeating the first two that have already been discussed. They add to those five others. The third is the existence of social differentiation, or the grouping of people into categories that inevitably leads to stereotyping. The fourth is that attitudes can be both reflective and automatic. When one’s reflective attitude does not agree with one’s automatic attitude, the result is dissociation. The fifth is that people are not aware of their dissociation, or that their automatic and reflective attitudes may not agree. Their biases are therefore hidden. The sixth is that hidden or implicit bias is much more common than explicit bias. And the seventh and final conclusion is that the existence of pervasive implicit bias in the culture directly contributes to racial discrimination against Black Americans. While explicit bias plays a role as well, the cumulative effect of implicit bias is even more substantial.

Appendixes 1-2 Analysis

Appendix 1 and 2 delve deeply into the issue of racial discrimination, which the authors bring up throughout the text. However, it is given a much more detailed and thorough treatment. The authors seek to show that racial discrimination exists—albeit in a different form than it has taken in the past—and that it is partly responsible for racial disadvantage. They want to make clear the current consensus among social scientists is that race discrimination has not disappeared, despite some recent social commentary to the contrary. The tone in these final sections is one of uncompromising seriousness. As with the rest of the book, the authors rely on scholarly research to demonstrate their points.

The authors choose to focus exclusively on discrimination against Black Americans since “Black-White relations” (175) have been the focus of most research after 1950 and remain “the most intensely studied form of prejudice” (175). The appendices serve as an extension of the book as a whole—building on the main arguments about hidden biases and further substantiating them. As the authors portray it, racial discrimination emerges partially as the result of blindspots rather than overt actions. However, this does not make it any less damaging.

In Appendix 1, the authors review previous research on discrimination to answer whether Americans are racist—a question posed at the start of the appendix. Although the book’s previous chapters regarding in-group privilege make the existence of discrimination clear, the authors feel the subject of racism warrants some particular attention. Racism is not mentioned explicitly in the book—which looks at a wide variety of biases. A link between implicit prejudice and racism is not obvious or certain, so the authors feel it needs to be explored in some detail.

The authors conclude in Appendix 1 that it is not correct to “characterize modern America as racist” (186) since most Americans espouse egalitarian values, but covert racial bias persists. This conclusion is consistent with the arguments throughout the book—that hidden biases contribute more to racial discrimination than overt racism. To support their conclusion, the authors primarily discuss studies that use “unobtrusive methods” (181) of research. They view unobtrusive method studies as exceptionally telling of racial attitudes since they generally involve people being observed without their knowledge. The authors also use the results of a particular survey given periodically between 1960 and 2000. However, they explain that the survey results are still widely debated among social scientists, who still have not reached a decisive conclusion as to their exact meaning.

Appendix 2 looks at Black disadvantage. The authors work to demonstrate that it does exist and that it is due, in part, to racial discrimination rather than other factors. As with the rest of the book, they use previous research to support their claims. Their goal is to draw conclusions “that are widely regarded as being confidently established in scientific research” (190). Pulling from research that is generally undisputed, the second appendix is designed to leave little doubt that racial inequality is a real phenomenon, and it is directly tied to hidden biases that perpetuate discrimination. This section makes the book’s theme of self-awareness more prescient, as implicit prejudice serves to create and perpetuate real and debilitating disadvantages.

Appendix 1 and 2 add to the book’s arguments and show how hidden biases contribute to racial disadvantage. The authors’ conclusions are a dire warning that our hidden biases have significant and often negative consequences. By focusing on Black disadvantage, the authors are able to make the impact of implicit prejudice much clearer. They affirm more than once that “the role played by implicit bias is too compelling for us to conclude that Black disadvantage is caused exclusively by explicit, overt prejudice (209).