Professor studying implicit bias becomes the subject of implicit bias?

[ucbalumnus]

Re: #1

The article mentions this:

@Rachel Kurzius in dcist.com

This specific manifestation is called the cross-race effect, which finds that humans have a tougher time distinguishing people of different races than themselves.

“You could imagine an editor searching up my image on Google, seeing this array of images, and seeing a couple of them that kind of look like me on my website,” says Lai. “The one they ultimately chose had the cleanest picture and a white background. He has a similar haircut, glasses, and he’s Asian.”

This happens because “you might not be attuning to the right things,” he says. “Hair and eye color for white people is diagnostic, not so much for Asian men.”

Of course, there could be other implications with more serious consequences than the wrong photo in an article. For example, being mistaken for a criminal suspect may be more likely if you and the suspect are both of the same visible minority group relative to the population of witnesses and police officers who may be watching or looking for the suspect.