Virtually imagining our biases
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Date
2023
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Abstract
A number of studies have investigated how immersion in
a virtual reality environment can affect participants’ implicit
biases. These studies presume associationism about implicit
bias. Recently philosophers have argued that associationism
is inadequate and have made a case for understanding
implicit biases propositionally. However, no propositionalist
has considered the empirical work on virtual reality and how
to integrate it into their theories. I examine this work against
a propositionalist background, in particular, looking at the
belief and patchy endorsement models. I argue that the
results therein can only be accommodated by a model
which recognizes structural heterogeneity, that is, one
which allows for implicit biases being both associatively
and non-associatively structured. My preferred view – that
implicit biases are constituted by unconscious imaginings –
allows for this, as well as for heterogeneity at the level of
content (propositional and imagistic), a feature which also
earn its explanatory keep in this context. I conclude that
empirical work on virtual reality and implicit bias gives us
a reason to prefer a pluralist model of bias, and that my
unconscious imagination model, in its recognizing wide ranging heterogeneity, is uniquely placed to accommodate
the results of work on virtual reality and bias mitigation.
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Keywords
Implicit bias; associationism; propositionalism; doxasticism; unconscious imagination; virtual reality