I spent some time in the interview talking about an unconscious bias I discovered in my own three year-old daughter. Before she could tie her own shoelaces, she had already come to the conclusion that nurses always have to be women, and that doctors usually have to be men. Where do you think this bias came from? You can listen to the interview here or download an MP3 file, and learn what I think parents ought to be doing to confront the unconscious biases that can be observed in children right from the time they are toddlers — biases that stay with us well into adolescence and adulthood.
Much of the research into the biases of small children is described in Chapter 4 of The Hidden Brain, which is titled “The Infant’s Stare, Macaca, and Racist Seniors.” You can watch a short video introduction to the chapter here — scroll down to the section titled Table of Contents and Video Summaries.
Many people are familiar with the famous experiments conducted in the 1940s that showed the strong preferences that small black children had for white dolls over black dolls. A remarkable replication of the experiment was conducted recently, and you can watch a short video of the new experiment here.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about what you think parents can do to confront the unconscious biases of their children.
