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Air Force: General "CQ" Brown

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Lesson 24, Topic 1
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Origin Story

Dr. Chester M. Pierce

First coined the term "microaggression"​

The term, Implicit Bias, was first coined back in 1995 by psychologists Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, where they argued that social behavior is largely influenced by unconscious associations and judgments (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). 

Excerpt from the book preface…

What are the hidden biases of this book title? They are, for lack of a better term, bits of knowledge about social groups. These bits of knowledge are stored in our brains because we encounter them so frequently in our cultural environments. Once logged in our minds, hidden biases can influence our behavior toward members of particular social groups, but we remain oblivious to their influence. In talking with others about hidden biases, we have discovered that most people find it unbelievable that their behavior can be guided by mental content by which they are unaware.

In this book, we aim to make clear why many scientists, ourselves very much included, now recognized hidden bias blindspots as fully believable because of the sheer weight of scientific evidence that demands this conclusion. But convincing readers of this is no simple challenge. How can we show the existence of something in our own minds in which we remain completely unaware? 

Our overall thesis for this part of the learning journey is that educators are GOOD PEOPLE with GOOD INTENTIONS. This thesis is connected to the book, BLIND SPOT: Hidden Biases of Good People, which was written by Dr. Banaji and Dr. Greenwald in 2013.