What is your first impression or feelings about any of the episode that you heard? What stood out to you as interesting or important? Why does it matter that people understand that they have implicit biases?

Implicit Bias

This assignment is likely to be different than most others you’ve had. I am asking you to listen to an episode of the radio program called ‘This American Life’ that discusses different aspects of life around the U.S. This particular episode covers the very important issue of race and policing, and gives us the opportunity to hear from real life experiences of people using or learning about implicit bias.

We haven’t covered the criminal justice system yet, but you have had several weeks of learning about the sociological perspective and chances are good that you have had lots of exposure to conversations about race and/or the criminal justice system.

Your job is to listen to the program, taking notes as you listen, and then answer the following questions:

What is your first impression or feelings about any of the episode that you heard? What stood out to you as interesting or important?
Consider the agents of socialization: family, peers, sports, religion, school, toys/games, the media. Choose 2 of those to discuss how implicit biases become a part of each of us. Do you think that we can un-learn or re-learn the messages that have created implicit biases? How?
Why does it matter that people understand that they have implicit biases?
What are some positive consequences to knowing that implicit biases exist? What are some negative consequences?

The Media Education Lab is a source of good definitions to guide us in this discussion:

Implicit Attitudes – Settled ways of thinking and feeling (about different objects, people, and phenomena) that we are not aware of.
Implicit Biases – Unconscious prejudice in favor or against certain kinds of people.
Stereotypes – Mental shortcut; generalized and simplified understanding of a particular type of person or thing.

While planning your week, keep in mind that the episode is 1 hour long. If possible, don’t multi-task while listening – it makes writing about it so much harder! When you get to the website to click and listen, you will also see that there is a transcript available if you need it.

Your finished paper does not have to be written in formal essay format, but should be at least 500 words.