In the first portion of the Blind reading for today, Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald discuss two implicit bias experiments that were performed in order to reveal any underlying stereotypes when it comes to gender and race. The first one titled the “Becoming Famous Overnight” experiment revealed that within society, people tend to believe that a male has more of a potential to be famous than a female. Even when the subjects were explicitly asked if they believed this, they said they did not however their results said otherwise. Another experiment that was analyzed looked into the common inferences among the relationship between the black population and weapons. The results of these trials showed that “the automatic Black = weapons association is much stronger among all groups who took the test” (105). Through both of these experiments, it was proven that there tend to be negative implicit biases placed against women and the black population. These views cause both of these groups of people to be seen as “inferior,” even in the 21st century. However, what if you belong to both of these populations? What are the personal physical and mental implications of being a black woman? There are countless studies and trials performed on just the female or colored populations, but there don’t seem to be many analyses carried out that combine the two.

It has always been very apparent to me that women experience hardships due to the stereotypes that people place on them. However, I did not realize how much the stereotype threats impact women’s performance in the workplace and especially in leadership roles. I was surprised to hear that “stereotype threat tends to have the most deleterious effects on those for whom the stereotype is the most self- relevant and on those who are motivated to perform well” because I would have thought that women who are motivated to perform better would not be as impacted (Hoyt & Murphy 393). I found this very interesting because I did not realize how important breaking the stereotype would be to a woman who wants to succeed in breaking it, making her hyper aware of what others are thinking about her. I think that my biggest takeaway from these readings about stereotypes is the fact that when people are reminded of the stereotype that people could have about them, they are much more likely to fall into that stereotype. I think that there needs to be a lot done in regard to eliminating stereotypes in our culture, especially with my research project being about the Equal Rights Amendment and how it has gone on for too long that women are not recognized in the Constitution for having the same rights as men.

In reading the Blindspot reading for next class, the section titled “The Cost of the Stereotype That American = White” stood out to me the most. Just yesterday, I saw a tweet from Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in which she listed characteristics about herself such as “Hijab, Muslim, Black, Foreign Born…” The point of the tweet was to point out xenophobia that she has come face-to-face with since 2016. In a response to the tweet, Senator Ted Cruz questioned why she had not mentioned “American” in her list attributes. He claimed that it was due to the supposed negative connotation with word “American” that he believes exists currently among liberals. However, in response to Cruz, Joshua Collins (a man running for Congress in Washington) remarked that “American” did not need to be on the list because it is implied since Omar is a congresswoman. He goes on to state, “[Omar’s] not required to call herself American in every tweet just because she’s not white.”

The implicit bias of American = White makes it so POC in the United States are constantly forced to prove their citizenship status while white people are able to exist within this country without having their citizenship status questioned. In a personal example, I have a friend from high school that is an immigrant from Korea. Her parents are naturalized citizens and are registered to vote. However, my friend told me that they never choose to vote and dislike interacting with people that are not Korean because they worry about their citizenship status being questioned. Meanwhile, my paternal grandpa is an immigrant from Canada. Although he has lived in the United States for roughly 60 years, he has never become a US citizen. However, he has not experienced the same questioning of his legal status as my friend’s parents have. People just assume that he is an American citizen because he is white. He often makes jokes about how people will be talking to him, assume that he is American, and then he will mention that he is not a citizen and the person he is talking to will be shocked.

This stereotype is dangerous because, like in the reading, the implicit bias can lead to people being treated as though they do not belong. Which, leads to the greater consequences of people loosing their job and being framed for crimes that they did not commit.

This event was really interesting because Timmons Group is not your typical engineering and technology firm and Brian Bortell offered a unique perspective as to why.  Brian started at Timmons as the lowest level engineer at Timmons.  He worked his way up and by the late 90s had been part of the group that bought Timmons out and later became the COO.  When Bortell and others bought Timmons, they created a physical copy of their mission, values, and strategic plan, which before that had just been common knowledge among the company because it started out so small.  But, as the company grew it became more important to have a hard copy of these things and to educate all employees about them.  Bortell became the CEO in the early 2000s.  He still reaches out to all the new employees to explain Timmons’s mission and values to ensure that all employees understand what the company is about and that they stay grounded in their values.  Timmons operates under a very personal form of leadership.  Bortell started working at Timmons when it was a very small firm, and he keeps this environment alive in his leadership style by staying connected with all employees despite how large the firm has grown.  The firm also upholds their value of teamwork because when Bortell and others bought out the firm, they restructured it since it had grown into departments that work together in order to emphasize the firm’s success over individual or department success.  This discussion was very encouraging to hear that there are firms and company’s out there who operate with such positive leadership models to ensure that all employees enjoy their work and the company stays successful at the same time.

Learning about stereotype threats and how those in minority groups often under-perform when reminded of their status was frustrating for me, since even minority individuals themselves seem to allows the prejudice around them to hurt them. However, it also made me wonder … what can be said of minorities when they “ironically” joke about their identities? If they perpetuate their own group’s stereotypes through ironic jokes to their fellow community … is there any implications of this? I see this often within some friends in the past, and I never know how to feel about it …

I was introduced to the concept of stereotype threat in my junior year of high school and as I learn more about different populations and the negative and positive stereotypes associated with them it becomes more and more clear the negative effects that the stereotype threat can play. A portion of Hoyte and Murphy’s report that stood out to me was when they said “stereotype threat revolves around making the stereotype less self-relevant. In the face of stereotype threat, women frequently try to separate their sense of self-worth from their performance in that domain oftentimes by distancing themselves from the domain or from the devalued group. Disengagement from a domain that is threatening to one’s self-worth can be ego protective and can facilitate persistence and motivation in the short term; however, it can also lead to reduced performance, motivation, and ultimately, disidentification from the domain altogether “. I found this very interesting as in many of the studies I have learned about stereotype threat they discuss the short term effects, like how being reminded of a stereotype affects an individual’s performance in taking a test or in a discussion.  I think the long terms effects pose a much greater threat to the individual and the negatively affected population. In other words, I feel that deterioration of one’s identity can lead to long term mental health struggles and further, the groups struggle in the long run as disassociation is doing nothing to put a stop to the harmful stereotype… if anything- it perpetuates its existence, making it harder for those who don’t have the skill or the ability to disassociate and avoid the negative effects.

I took the implicit bias test on gender and careers, and was somewhat surprised when I saw that I had a tendency to place men in career positions and women in a care taking position. I went to an all girls school from kindergarten through high school, and was always in an environment that encouraged women to pursue whatever career they wanted. I come from a background with so many women that make significant contributions in whatever field they go into. Despite my upbringing and the people I was surrounded by throughout my childhood, our general societal presumptions about gender are still in my implicit biases. I found that really interesting, because I went into that test pretty convinced I knew what my results would be, and they ended up being the opposite.

I especially enjoyed the readings on outsmarting mindbugs, partially because I am a solutions-oriented person. Once I knew about the mindbugs and implicit biases, I wanted to know how to counteract them. My main remaining questions are which method will work best to counter mindbugs, and how can we test it? I think it would depend on the person. I usually understand solutions through their quantitative effect, so the numerical way might be the best way to counter my mindbugs, but others may find that active countering qualitatively would be more effective, or bypassing them altogether.

Dissociation–the state in which a person possesses conflicting attitudes, one reflective, the other automatic–is a hard concept for me to wrap my head around. Similar to the mindbugs from the last reading, it is hard to understand that my brain makes decisions and judgements that I do not have control over. However, the mystery behind dissociation makes it all the more important to be aware of. People do not have to endorse racist or sexist ideas to possess them. It is a problem that society must address. Some implicit biases are extremely harmful and potentially deadly, like the black=harmful and the American=white stereotypes that the author talks about.

The Managing to Clear the Air reading delves into specific ways that stereotypes, implicit or explicit, are damaging. If a person feels like they are negatively stereotyped, they are more likely to perform worse or underperform. I learned about this in my 102 class as well; it’s called stereotype threat. There are several other aspects of stereotype effects that are startling. Take, for example, reactant response. It is upsetting to think about a person changing themselves to fit in, then being ostracized in other parts of their life because of it. It is the definition of a lose-lose situation. It is so important to learn about these threats and try to find ways to combat them. I expect that they will be obstacles for me in the future, so I want to be as prepared and aware as possible.

I took the gender and science test and received the result “slight automatic association for Male and Liberal Arts and Female with Science.” I was a bit surprised from this result. I was worried that I was going to get the opposite which is a stereotype I strongly dislike, and I wonder if this made me more conscious of what I was answering. I am a female in science (math) myself, so the math=male stereotype is one I am sensitive to and do not want to perpetuate, even if it is subconscious. When I look around my classes, I feel like there is usually a good mix of men and women surrounding me. However, in my liberal arts classes I do notice a ratio heavier on the female side. I am sure that these impacted my score. Implicit biases are very frightening to me. I do not want to underperform or pressure people because of my unregistered stereotypes, but that is just another reason why it is so important to try to bring them to light.