The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism - Quartz Media

In 1998, the incoming freshman class at Yale University was shown a psychological test that claimed to reveal and measure unconscious racism. The implications were intensely personal. Even students who insisted they were egalitarian were found to have unconscious prejudices (or “implicit bias” in psychological lingo) that made them behave in small, but accumulatively significant, discriminatory ways. Mahzarin Banaji, one of the psychologists who designed the test and leader of the discussion with Yale’s freshmen, remembers the tumult it caused. “It was mayhem,” she wrote in a recent email to Quartz. “They were confused, they were irritated, they were thoughtful and challenged, and they formed groups to discuss it.”

Finally, psychologists had found a way to crack open people’s unconscious, racist minds. This apparently incredible insight has taken the test in question, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), from Yale’s freshmen to millions of people worldwide. Referencing the role of implicit bias in perpetuating the gender pay gap or racist police shootings is widely considered woke, while IAT-focused diversity training is now a litmus test for whether an organization is progressive.

This acclaimed and hugely influential test, though, has repeatedly fallen short of basic scientific standards.

Full article: https://qz.com/1144504/the-world-is-relying-on-a-flawed-psychological-test-to-fight-racism/

Academic, Bias, Biased Decisions, Gender Bias, SexismBrigitte BellanDecember 22, 2017Olivia Goldhill, IAT, Yale University, Unconscious Bias

Microsoft Researcher Details The Real-World Dangers Of Algorithm Bias

However quickly artificial intelligence evolves, however steadfastly it becomes embedded in our lives -- in health, law enforcement, sex, etc. -- it can't outpace the biases of its creators, humans. Microsoft Researcher Kate Crawford delivered an incredible keynote speech, titled "The Trouble with Bias" at Spain's Neural Information Processing System Conference on Tuesday.

Bias, Biased decisions, Academic, AI, Gender Bias, PrejudiceBrigitte BellanDecember 11, 2017Gizmodo, Kate Crawford, Bias, Selection Bias, Microsoft

Biases in Algorithms - Cornell University Blog

http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/02/08/theme-4-biases-exist-in-algorithmically-organized-systems/

In class we have recently discussed how the search algorithm for Google works. From the very basic material that we learned about the algorithm, it seems like the algorithm is resistant to failure due to its very systematic way of organizing websites. However, after considering how it works, is it possible that the algorithm is flawed? More specifically, how so from a social perspective?

Well, as it turns out, many algorithms are indeed flawed- including the search algorithm. The reason being is that algorithms are ultimately coded by individuals who inherently have biases. And although there continues to be a push for the promotion of people of color in STEM fields, the reality at the moment is that the majority of people in charge of designing algorithms are White males.

Bias, Academic, Gender Bias, StereotypesBrigitte BellanOctober 20, 2017Bias, algorithms, Cornell

Words ascribed to female economists: 'Hotter,' 'feminazi.' Men?: 'Goals,' 'Nobel.' - The Washington Post

In 1970, the economics department at the University of California at Berkeley hired three newly minted economics PhDs from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Two - both men - were hired as assistant professors. But a woman, Myra Strober, was hired as a lecturer, a position of inferior pay and status and no possibility of tenure. When she asked the department chairman why she was denied an assistant professorship, he put her off with excuses. She kept pressing him until he gave a frank answer: She had two young children; the department couldn't possibly put her on the tenure track.

So Strober took another offer. In 1972, she became the first female economist at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. "They didn't know what to make of me," she said. The faculty retreat, which had been held every year at a men's club, had to be moved. There were jokes about putting a bag over her head so they could keep going to the club.

"It was like trying to run a race with one of your legs tied behind you," Strober said of the culture.

Look Who’s Still Talking the Most in Movies: White Men -New York Times

With “Wonder Woman” and “Girls Trip” riding a wave of critical and commercial success at the box office this summer, it can be tempting to think that diversity in Hollywood is on an upswing.

But these high-profile examples are not a sign of greater representation in films over all. A new study from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering found that films were likely to contain fewer women and minority characters than white men, and when they did appear, these characters were portrayed in ways that reinforced stereotypes. And female characters, in particular, were generally less central to the plot.

You may be stereotyped if you use these words - Business Insider

Stereotyping happens. A new study helps identify how it happens and what it gets wrong by asking participants to make predictions about people based on their Tweets.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions had subjects read sets of 20 Tweets and predict the writer's gender, age, political orientation, and education level based on the words they used. Subjects' guesses were fairly accurate — they guessed right 76% of the time on gender, 69% on whether the person was older or younger than 24, and 82% on liberal versus conservative. They were only right in 46% of cases, however, when predicting whether the Tweet-writers had no bachelor’s degree, a bachelor’s degree, or an advanced degree.

Academic, StereotypesBrigitte BellanJune 29, 2017University of Penn, Business Insider