Implicit Bias

Brian Nosek, Professor of Psychology from University of Virginia was one among the many distinguished and prominent speakers who walked the ramp of 543 Howard Street as an invited guest from our sister organization, LPFI. He gave us a scintillating presentation on unconscious bias - thoughts and feelings that exist outside of conscious awareness or conscious control that to a large extent shapes how we think and do things.
Recent results from his lab compared implicit - and explicit -
bias between self-identified conservatives/liberals, with these results,
as reported in the Washington Post:

"Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes -- subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.

That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did."

Here's the complete article from Washington Post.

But better commentary yet was from Stephen Colbert on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show".