Everyday Bias

Claims of bias have been used to attack institutions and individuals for years now. Yet few truly understand the concept of bias or recognize the paradox in the proposed solutions, which are often more biased than the status quo. Fortunately, there’s an opportunity for critical thinking on bias with the release of a new edition of Everyday Bias: Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in Our Daily Lives (Bloomsbury Academic, September 3). Co-authors Howard J. Ross and son Jake Ross explain that bias is a normal function of the human brain, not a bad habit of bad actors. We all have biases that are grounded in our lived experiences; the important thing is how to mitigate them so we can treat each other fairly and respectfully. Two new chapters make this edition urgent. The Cost of the Attention Economy traces how platforms built to maximize engagement, not truth, algorithmically push us toward the extremes. Hey Siri, Are You Biased? turns the lens on artificial intelligence, from facial-recognition systems that misidentify marginalized people to hiring algorithms trained on biased human decisions. Bias doesn’t disappear when it’s automated. It scales. The book’s signature tool, the PAUSE model — Pay attention, Acknowledge your assumptions,…