I so often catch myself prejudging people (i haven't met before and don't even know) based on just first time impression. This might be OK in the context of a job interview when the interviewers are trying to make a quick decision. But in my failings this is not the context, its just subconscious prejudging on a fairly regular basis. And when the prejudging is negative - which is now termed as prejudice (hope my def is correct) - it bothers me a lot. This is more so because I really get mad and seriously pissed off when I'm on the receiving end of such prejudice.  And I do get on the receiving end a lot. Though the difference being that the prejudice i find myself at the receiving end (I suspect) is along racial line, but the prejudice I find myself with is independent of race, but then both are bad.

The fact is that if in my thoughts I am consciously aware of this pit fall I'm able to avoid it, It is when I'm not consciously thinking of it that I fall into the trap. Since I do get angry when I'm on the receiving end, its not enough for me to sweep my failings under the carpet and say "well everyone does this anyway"

I suppose my question then is has anyone trained their minds away from this kind of prejudice at the subconscious level and how did you do it?

30 minutes ago, grumpyOldDude said:

I suppose my question then is has anyone trained their minds away from this kind of prejudice at the subconscious level and how did you do it?

By talking to the person you've judged and seeing if what you believed to be true about them is true or not.

When I do this, I feel like the majority of the times my initial judgement of the person was correct. I don't know if there is some confirmation bias here though (there probably is). There's a reason why stereotypes exist, it's because there is some truth to them.

A very easy example I can think of is: Can you pick the weak, submissive person out of a crowd? These people typically correlate with long hair, eyes to the ground, head tucked into their shoulders, weak posture, etc. The ability to quickly measure others against yourself is built into our monkey brains. It's instinctual to avoid punching a muscly guy two times your size in the face and picking on the weaker guy.

Is this a bad thing and should you train yourself to ignore your instincts? I think it depends on the situation. Social gathering? Yeah you should probably ignore your prejudgments. Drinking at a bar? Definitely listen to them. 

its not enough for me to sweep my failings under the carpet and say "well everyone does this anyway"

But... everyone does. What you're describing as "prejudice" is nothing more than having an automatic response; everyone has that. There's nothing you can do about it. Automatic responses exist because it makes it possible for you to act much faster than otherwise. This was essential to our survival when threats to life were a constant thing.

For example, you have an automatic response to seeing a big animal with sharp teeth you have never seen before, like a wild tiger: treat the animal as a threat and prepare to defend yourself or flee.

This can also be further learned by experience, so for example, if every police officer you have ever met has been after you, you're going to automatically respond to the sight of a police officer defensively, even if you know that most police officers are not out to get you.

But we don't just have an automatic response. We also have a controlled response, which is slower. So as long as you just take some time to evaluate the situation and go with a controlled response rather than an automatic response, there's no problem. I mean, unless they have some kind of subconscious-mind-reading device, but I don't think that's a thing.

Of course, if your job puts you in situations where your life or the lives of others are on the line, such as the job of police officers, that's more difficult. Apparently high-stress decision-making training helps. But there's no perfect solution.

I guess that the big problem is that, being it a unconscious bias, it's not that easy to realise you're biased and correct your behaviour accordingly in situ.

One thing that I've tried and it's mentioned in many trainings and talks about unconscious bias is this: set aside a few minutes every day to reflect about one conversation or situation that happened during the day where you might have been affected by unconscious bias. Figure out why you acted the way you did and think how you would have liked to act instead. That way, you start training your brain to act more accordingly to the way you want to behave and removing your prejudices. Also, you get better at identifying when you're prey of unconscious bias and acting ignoring it when it arises.

The interesting thing about prejudice, is that as human animals we have evolved over thousands of years to use prejudice to judge other people (and animals), as our very survival will have often depended on it. Our brains are great at finding patterns in data, (even to the extent of magical thinking, where we find patterns in random data, hence why statistics is so important).

The very modern politically correct idea that 'prejudice is bad' makes a lot of sense in society for preventing the 'wrong kind' of prejudice, but we have to realise we are fighting against our instincts here, and trying to deny the nature of statistics to a certain extent. And sometimes in order to fight this people go overboard in the other direction, for example with positive discrimination, which is totally illogical (after all, if you don't want to prejudge people, you should treat all people equally).

Somewhat controversially, I would say that in many cases, if you have good judgement, you would hope your prejudice will more often be right than it is wrong. However it is important to realise it will be subject to your own bias and small set of experiences, and opinions you may have been indoctrinated with. Whether you choose to use this is down to your personal beliefs. And if you do use it, be acutely aware that you may be completely wrong in your assumptions.

An example is, if you are looking for a hotel to stay for the night in a foreign country, you look around and find some hotels in what seems a dangerous part of town, and some that look safer. Do you stay at the ones in the safer area, or in the more dangerous because you don't wish to be prejudiced?

If we take for granted that we all apply prejudice in some manner, the other problem is being a victim of prejudice, which happens to all of us in some form or another (whether applying for a loan, mortgage, insurance, job etc, even finding a partner). If you are suffering negatively in this way in any situation, the trick is to show as well as possible that you as an individual are not deserving any negative bias. If an insurer says they don't want to insure my car in a dodgy area, I might say, yes but I will keep it in a locked garage. This doesn't always work, but it means I don't represent the risk as they see it as a whole for my area, so I am more likely to be successful.

16 minutes ago, lawnjelly said:

An example is, if you are looking for a hotel to stay for the night in a foreign country, you look around and find some hotels in what seems a dangerous part of town, and some that look safer. Do you stay at the ones in the safer area, or in the more dangerous because you don't wish to be prejudiced?

I suspect grumpyOldDude isn't talking about this kind of "prejudice" - but more ethnic, class, or even gender-based prejudice.

I've found that it's hard to be prejudiced against someone once I come to see them as a person. Intellectually, all of us (or most of us?) understand that "other humans are people, too", but it takes personal experience with someone to really drive that home. It's easier to fear a category of people when you have no significant personal experiences with that category. This is probably why the most racist parts of a country are often the areas that are most racially homogeneous. If everyone looks like you where you live, someone visibly different will be immediately apparent as an outsider, with all the negative things that come with that. Someone who looks like you but doesn't think like you tend to become "other", too - if all you know about a person was that they hold exactly opposing political views to you, what is your first reaction to them going to be?

If you're having trouble with your own prejudice, I'd suggest putting yourself in situations where you're exposed to the people you're prejudiced against. Talk to them, or at least listen to what they have to say. Put yourself in a place that allows them to become more human to you, rather than examples of a category.

8 hours ago, TheComet said:

A very easy example I can think of is: Can you pick the weak, submissive person out of a crowd? These people typically correlate with long hair, eyes to the ground, head tucked into their shoulders, weak posture, etc. The ability to quickly measure others against yourself is built into our monkey brains. It's instinctual to avoid punching a muscly guy two times your size in the face and picking on the weaker guy.

The bold question typifies my problem. We humans think we can... and like you said sometimes we are right. A few times wrong. You will probably want a better technique than just instinct for the sake avoiding guilt that comes on us the times we realise we got it very wrong. Like the other day I referred to a woman as a bitch, not just because she a woman, but because of the impression her looks gave me, only to realise latter that she was the sweetest and one of the most caring ladies I've met

8 hours ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

Automatic responses exist because it makes it possible for you to act much faster than otherwise. This was essential to our survival when threats to life were a constant thing.

For example, you have an automatic response to seeing a big animal with sharp teeth you have never seen before, like a wild tiger: treat the animal as a threat and prepare to defend yourself or flee.


The evolutionary advantage makes very good sense

Reminds me of another problem that may also be evolutionary, :: I am quick to see a rival that i'm competing with in a person if they are outside my circle. This is as bad if not worse  

8 hours ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

But we don't just have an automatic response. We also have a controlled response, which is slower. So as long as you just take some time to evaluate the situation and go with a controlled response rather than an automatic response, there's no problem. I mean, unless they have some kind of subconscious-mind-reading device, but I don't think that's a thing.

If all situations provide opportunities for second chances of a controlled response that would be ideal, but many time we take the crucial decisions and actions based on our first impressions. These set the tone/foundations for future relationships. I think being open minded may pay more in the long run than relying on a secondary controlled response, because the damage may have been done by then 

9 hours ago, Avalander said:

One thing that I've tried and it's mentioned in many trainings and talks about unconscious bias is this: set aside a few minutes every day to reflect about one conversation or situation that happened during the day where you might have been affected by unconscious bias. Figure out why you acted the way you did and think how you would have liked to act instead. That way, you start training your brain to act more accordingly to the way you want to behave and removing your prejudices. Also, you get better at identifying when you're prey of unconscious bias and acting ignoring it when it arises.

Great advice

9 hours ago, lawnjelly said:

Somewhat controversially, I would say that in many cases, if you have good judgement, you would hope your prejudice will more often be right than it is wrong. However it is important to realise it will be subject to your own bias and small set of experiences, and opinions you may have been indoctrinated with. Whether you choose to use this is down to your personal beliefs. And if you do use it, be acutely aware that you may be completely wrong in your assumptions.

 

What this suggest to me is we should avoid acting on our default mindset all of the time. The problem is (i think) human brains (or at least mine) is probably too lazy for this

Like Oberon said, these prejudices are more usually expressed in racial stereotyping, gender bias, social class, the image you have in your head as ideal/not ideal and even sexual orientations, but i have to be careful because going specific on these cases can result in a bad thread so the general example you gave is fine

9 hours ago, Oberon_Command said:

If you're having trouble with your own prejudice, I'd suggest putting yourself in situations where you're exposed to the people you're prejudiced against. Talk to them, or at least listen to what they have to say. Put yourself in a place that allows them to become more human to you, rather than examples of a category.

In some situations you do have the opportunity to talk to people meet them, interact with different ideas and so on. In fact this is a kind of level 2. I never fail on this level which what I meant in the initial post that if I am not in default mode, that conscious of the possibility that I might go off the rails, then I do very well

The problem comes when your bias reactions are immediate and the consequences of a bad judgement call give you no 2nd chances.

I suppose a solution will be like lawnjelly said paraphrasing:: reflect always on your actions and let it rewire your brain to a new you 

9 hours ago, Oberon_Command said:

 

Maybe a combination of practicing making decisions very quickly in high-stress situations to fine-tune your automatic response (maybe a frustrating video game would help with that), and making sure to not use your automatic response in non-threatening situations, perhaps by developing a habit of doing something innocuous that takes a couple of seconds in those situations, to give you time to control your response. But that's just an idea; I don't have any great difficulty with controlling my automatic response (I think I can attribute that to my working in fast food and retail), so I don't know for sure how well that would work in practice.

On 5/9/2018 at 7:33 AM, grumpyOldDude said:

The fact is that if in my thoughts I am consciously aware of this pit fall I'm able to avoid it, It is when I'm not consciously thinking of it that I fall into the trap.

I hear yeah.

Just an observation to throw your way, I'd say you're already doing a great deal more than, what I'd assume, the average person does.  I hear more and more from different sources that social media has really changed the social landscape amongst peers.  Like it or not conformity to 'the correct perspective' is becoming the new norm and is gaining ground with younger generations.  When toeing the politically correct line becomes fashionable it posses the risk of internalising prejudices and denying any that exist.  Thus you get the torrent of people proclaiming " I'm not racist but...." and then comes out of there mouth the very thing we're trying to rid ourselves of.

Like many people have already mentioned, we're only human.  Society isn't perfect and never will be.  Our Ideals are not perfect, and dare I say realistic, but it is in the pursuit of those ideals that defines our character.