As we all know, justice is blind and everyone is equal under the law. But lawyers are human. No matter how strongly we believe in our own impartiality, our brains might just surprise us.
Project Implicit is a nonprofit started by three scientists at the University of Washington, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia that conducts studies concerning “implicit social cognition”—or “thoughts and feelings that occur outside of conscious awareness or control.”
The project has a number of online “tests” available to the public. Some are designed to uncover implicit associations about race (and also “skin tone”), gender, sexual orientation, and other topics. Other tests reveal hidden preferences or feelings about things like self-esteem, anxiety, and alcohol. Some even test presidential popularity, world religions, and weight bias. In over-simplified terms (I’m a lawyer, not a research scientist!), the tests use image and word associations and measurements of participants’ response speed to evaluate levels of bias or preference. The tests take about 10 minutes each.
Feeling pretty confident in my egalitarian social views, I recently took the test concerning age preference. I was shocked to find that my actions indicated a moderate bias for young versus old—especially surprising given that as I was taking the test, I thought I was nailing it. I was sure I wasn’t showing any bias at all.
Project Implicit’s online tests demonstrate the utter complexity of social bias—we can espouse views and hold convictions that our test responses belie. Taking the tests can help shed light on your own thought processes, as well as those of the judges, jurors, witnesses, clients, and co-counsel you interact with on a daily basis. At the very least, it will help you realize what you’re up against and motivate you to work that much harder to be open-minded and fair in your practice.