An interesting article appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled Why We Stereotype Strangers. The point they drive home is that we all have unconscious biases about people, and those biases may influence our behavior. Here's an excerpt:
One way to think about implicit bias is as a habit we developed from the moment we were born and started perceiving the world around us. “Everything we take in—everything our parents tell us, everything we see on TV or hear in music, that we learn in school or from friends or see on the streets—all of this adds up to associations in our brain,” Dr. Chugh says. We may not consciously believe these influences, but they’re there, idling in the background.
Unconscious bias is “sticky and malleable,” Dr. Chugh says, meaning that it fluctuates according to what is happening in the world and in the mind of the bias holder. It can be higher or lower on different days and in different situations.
There's even a test you can take to identify your biases. Link. I'll have to take their word for it that I'm biased. I would take the test but for the bias I have against sites that require registration for use. In any event, a person could go so far to overcome a particular bias that he/she develops an intolerance for others.
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10:58 AM 10/30/2018
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