Unconscious Biases Quotes

Everyone has blind spots, and even the brightest people are no exceptions.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Assumptions are the things we don't know we're making.

Assumptions are what we don't know we are making

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experience. No one can eliminate prejudices—just recognize them.

Stereotypes and perceptions have their real effects.

You know, sometimes there's a difference between what is actually the truth and what you perceive to be the truth through your social conditioning.

It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment fruitless, but even if we wished to do so, it could not be done. Every man has his own conception of the world, and this he cannot so easily lay aside. We must, example, use language, and our language is necessarily steeped in preconceived ideas. Only they are unconscious preconceived ideas, which are a thousand times the most dangerous of all.

We leap to conclusions and remember those conclusions as fact. We react on our own prejudices but don't always recognize them as such.

All know the influence of interest on the mind of man, and how unconsciously his judgement is warped by that influence.

It's difficult for me to work with women, because I find that direct references are made back to me too fast. Working with men, it gives it a little distance.

I've always been curious about how much of our cultural baggage we bring to what and how we read. I suspect we bring a lot, although we like to think we don't.

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want.

If people are failing, they look inept. If people are succeeding, they look strong and good and competent. That's the 'halo effect.' Your first impression of a thing sets up your subsequent beliefs. If the company looks inept to you, you may assume everything else they do is inept.

The point is that these decisions they've made are partly for your convenience and partly for theirs and partly out of stereotypes that they carry with them from the conventions of the computer field.

Our babies know nothing about hate or racism. But soon they begin to learn - and only from us.

If a woman writes about a domestic situation, everyone automatically assumes that it's about her.

Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.

Remember, we see the world not as it is but as we are. Most of us see through the eyes of our fears and our limiting beliefs and our false assumptions.

Interrogate yours hidden assumptions

No child is racist. A child is born, and then they go through the educational system.

Strong moral arguments exist for why we should often try to ignore stereotypes or override them. But we shouldn't assume they represent some irrational quirk of the unconscious mind. In fact, they're largely the consequence of the mind's attempt to make a rational decision.

We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.

I can't change the preconceived notions a reader brings to a work, but I can do my best to be aware of, address, and subvert tropes and expectations that readers may have as best I can and hope I don't screw it up too much.