All of us are victims of our known or hidden biases. Sometimes, we don't even realize that we have a bias, lest alone that our thoughts, utterances or actions are influenced by them. Here are some incidences either about me or other people that show hidden biases.
1) I was once writing an email to a female professor at my university. In my email, I addressed the female professor by her first name, and I referred to another male professor as "Dr. So-and-so". I myself was surprised to learn about my own writing, when the female professor brought my attention towards it. I thought I had done so, since I was more comfortable addressing the female professor by her first name, but that wasn't the case with the male professor. But is this a good justification?
2) We, specially Indians, are biased towards fair-skinned people. While it is common to form a first opinion about a person from their looks, I think Indians form their first opinion based on the skin color as well. Indians continue to judge people of all ages, including babies, in this way. To illustrate my point, show pictures of two babies, one who is fair and another who is dark, to some Indian. You may want to make sure that the babies are otherwise equivalent in looks or appearance (both being chubby, for example). It is highly likely that the fair-skinned baby would receive many more compliments than the darker-skinned baby. (If this is difficult to do in real life, look at facebook news feeds. And count the number of likes or comments on pictures of fair babies versus that for dark babies. Actually, this is a good social experiment to carry out!)
Now that I am aware of at least these two biases, I wish I would be careful next time, and not get carried away by my instinct which I think is driven by my bias.
1) I was once writing an email to a female professor at my university. In my email, I addressed the female professor by her first name, and I referred to another male professor as "Dr. So-and-so". I myself was surprised to learn about my own writing, when the female professor brought my attention towards it. I thought I had done so, since I was more comfortable addressing the female professor by her first name, but that wasn't the case with the male professor. But is this a good justification?
2) We, specially Indians, are biased towards fair-skinned people. While it is common to form a first opinion about a person from their looks, I think Indians form their first opinion based on the skin color as well. Indians continue to judge people of all ages, including babies, in this way. To illustrate my point, show pictures of two babies, one who is fair and another who is dark, to some Indian. You may want to make sure that the babies are otherwise equivalent in looks or appearance (both being chubby, for example). It is highly likely that the fair-skinned baby would receive many more compliments than the darker-skinned baby. (If this is difficult to do in real life, look at facebook news feeds. And count the number of likes or comments on pictures of fair babies versus that for dark babies. Actually, this is a good social experiment to carry out!)
Now that I am aware of at least these two biases, I wish I would be careful next time, and not get carried away by my instinct which I think is driven by my bias.
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