Implicit Bias and Processing

This chapter will consider the kinds of processing involved in implicit bias, and how it relates to the debate on what kind of mental construct implicit biases are. I will begin by identifying what is meant by implicit bias and the indirect psychological measurement instruments designed to track it, before overviewing two streams of psychological research on implicit cognition. I will focus on dual process theories in this chapter, which recognize a distinction between the implicit and explicit, both with respect to processing and mental constructs. I will overview some versions of the canonical view in psychology of implicit biases as associations, before moving to recent empirical work, which has motivated an alternative, propositional understanding of implicit biases and the processes in which they partake. Next I motivate the need to recognize wide-ranging heterogeneity in the category of implicit bias, which accommodates various processes and mental constructs. Finally, I overview my preferred model of implicit biases as constituted by unconscious imaginings which is uniquely placed to accommodate this heterogeneity.