(clicking) - Welcome back. Now that you've taken the implicit association test, how do you feel about your results? Are you surprised? Were you expecting those results? Are you wondering if they're even true? It's natural to take the implicit association test and feel some cognitive dissonance. You may be thinking, "But I thought I didn't see any difference. "I thought I treated everyone the same. "Is there something wrong with the test? "Is there something wrong with me?" Well, one thing I know for sure, if we're humans and we have brains, which we all do, then we all have biases. Our lived experiences may have contributed to the results of our tests. Some of you, however, may have some even more pressing questions, like do I have a bias against myself? This happens quite often. For example, you may be a person of color and your skin tone test said that you have a preference for lighter skin, or you may be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and your test says you have a preference for straight over gay. Perhaps you're a woman who works in STEM and took the gender science test, and your test says you associate women with the humanities and men with STEM, or you took the gender career test and you associate women with families and men with career. How can this be? How is it possible that we can have biases against ourselves? The answer is in a concept called internalized oppression that is a result of the individual biases, organizational biases, systemic biases, and societal biases that we talked about. But before we talk about internalized oppression, let's explore what oppression is. For many, it sounds like such a heavy word. Oppression is simply defined as a system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social group memberships and operates intentionally and unintentionally at the individual, institutional, and cultural levels. This system is operating all the time and exists everywhere. It's heavily reliant on biases and stereotypes to maintain the status quo of advantage and disadvantage. Oppression can become internalized. In other words, individuals can apply the system of oppression to how they see themselves. as well as how they see other people. Internalized oppression occurs when both members of advantaged groups, those groups that are on the receiving end of positive biases about their group, and members of targeted groups who may be on the receiving end of negative biases about their group adapt the dominant ideology about their own groups, whether positive or negative. This maintains and reinforces the system of oppression. As part of their socialization process, which we'll talk about in a moment, members of both groups internalize social messages about their own group, as well as messages about other groups. First, let's talk about internalized subordination. If you recall, bias evolves from individual to organizational to structural to social. Our behaviors are affected by that which we may have a bias for or against, whether presumed good or bad. The phenomenon of positive and negative bias posits that negative events and experiences have a greater impact on our brains than those that are positive. Should you be on the receiving end of negative bias, the effects can be worse. This is the root of internalized subordination, when members of those groups that are targeted by biases internalize the dominant social messages of inferiority about their group. Conversely, the more you receive positive benefits of the doubt, if you will, the more you come to expect it. When you notice that the people, organizations, systems and cultural norms within which you interact allow for more relative opportunity, access, or benefits than those considered other, it becomes normalized. This socially superior status becomes accepted, internalized and presumed as deserved. Here's an example. A bilingual person may wish not to speak Spanish with others in an organization because they've heard a primarily English-only sentiment, so internalizes that speaking Spanish must be bad or undesirable. Or similarly, a student with a learning difference may choose not to use their legally entitled disability accommodations because of not wanting to be associated with the stigma attached. Internalized domination may look like a housing creed that discourages people of color, immigrants, or those using Section 8 housing from purchasing homes in a neighborhood, or intentionally limiting access to anything, for that matter. It may also manifest as heterosexuals believing that those in same sex relationships should not be allowed to parent. In both cases, the negative biases and accompanying stereotypes about the groups to which they're potentially limiting opportunity fuel their behavior. This in turn affects the way our identities are authored. What does that mean? It affects the way we see and perceive ourselves because of these messages that we are constantly getting about our identities. Here's a perfect example. Back in the 1940s, doctors Kenneth and Mamie Clark, pictured here, a husband and wife team of psychology researchers, used dolls to investigate how young black children viewed theirs and white racial identities. They found that given a choice between black dolls and white dolls, most black children preferred to play with the white dolls. They ascribed positive characteristics to the white dolls. However, they ascribed negative characteristics to the black ones who actually look like them. Then after being asked to describe the doll that looked most like them, some of the children became emotionally upset having to identify with the doll that they had just rejected and to which they had ascribed all of those negative characteristics. The Clarks concluded that black children, as a result of living in a society that is laden with systems of oppression that devalue people of color over members of the dominant white racial group, had come to see themselves in a negative light. What's important to note about this doll test is that even though it was done in the 1940s, this experiment has been replicated several times, most notably by CNN in 2014, with the exact same results. All this really goes to show is that even though we've evolved as a society towards equity and inclusion, because of the embedded and prevailing cultural and social oppression and the biases that accompany them, a lot hasn't really changed. Even in the CNN experiment, the parents who were watching this, their children ascribing positive results to the white dolls and negative result to the black dolls, were mortified, as they never had given their children direct messages about race. It was still clear that their children were picking it up from all around them, an example of the societal bias from moving through the world. So, here's some key takeaways about bias. All of us, starting as children, as I've just mentioned, receive messages about identity-based characteristics from our environments. Most of our environments are majority centric, which means that there will be positive biases or the benefit of the doubt, if you will, extended to either the majority identities or those identities that receive more relative privilege or benefits of the doubt. Those are the identities to whom positive bias is extended. If you think back to all of those identities that we discussed in module one, this aligns with core identities, such as gender. Though there are a relatively equal number of men and women, cis-gender males are given positive preference. Similarly, though people of color are the predominant global majority, typically members of the Caucasian, white, or European American racial groups are given positive preference. This can be applied to additional identities, such as ability, faith traditions, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. These negative external messages that we receive and that we observe can result in negative internal messages that can affect how we see ourselves and others. (clicking)
