In an article on “The Hidden Biases That Shape Inequality” on Monday the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on some papers presented at the plenary session of the recent American Sociological Association annual meeting in New York, a gathering devoted to the theme of “Interrogating Inequality.”
Based on the Chronicle’s report, it appears that Inequality took the Fifth.
If bias — defined by Merriam-Webster as “a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment” and by The Free Dictionary as “a. A preference or an inclination…. b) An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice” — is hidden, can it fairly be described as bias?
Here is one example of presumably hidden class bias given by Cecila Ridgeway, a Stanford sociologist who organized the session and is the current president of the American Sociological Association: “A physician might prescribe a simpler but less effective treatment regime for a working-class diabetes patient, whereas a middle-class patient might receive a more complicated and better regimen.”
There is an empirical question of whether the “simpler” treatment might in fact be more likely to be more effective with most lower class patients, but even assuming that the doctor’s choice was the product of bias, what is “hidden” about it?
Another Stanford sociologist, Shelley Correll, gave another example — the “devalued status” of motherhood.
Mothers are perceived as less devoted to their jobs and less competent at them. They violate the “ideal worker norm,” she said, by which workers are expected to be fully committed and always there for their employers.
But again, is this perception necessarily biased, especially as it involves the mothers of young children (see recent discussions of the debate over academic motherhood here and here )? Prof. Correll’s suggestion, in any event, is not to correct a misperception but “redefining what it means to be a good and productive worker.”
“Or take race,” the Chronicle adds.
Another panelist, Lawrence D. Bobo, described how society had repudiated Jim Crow even as survey research shows the endurance of other charged racial attitudes, with powerful implications for public policy. Mr. Bobo, a scholar of race at Harvard, pointed in particular to the belief that minorities should overcome prejudice without special favors.
It is not at all clear that the belief that everyone should be treated “without special favors” based on race is a racial attitude at all, much less a biased one. But Prof. Bobo has no doubt. “This is the core modern expression of racial resentment,” he claimed.
According to the Chronicle, much of this sort of research has been collected in a new edited volume, The Handbook of the Social Psychology of Inequality. Based on the examples provided here, these bias-hunting sociologists resemble what Prof. Jonathan Haidt described as “a tribal-moral community” with shared “‘sacred values’ that hinder research and damage their credibility.”
In their determination to find and ferret out hidden bias they also resemble the theologist in the following observation from an anonymous wit:
Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there.
Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there and shouting ‘I found it!
