Think before you shoot?

Dropped in at the wet market this morning after taiji class which is not my routine. The usual fish stall which I patronise ran out of prawns. So I bought from a relatively new stall run by a few men including an old man. The tray which they displayed the prawns was a few feet from the weighing machine. I took a close look at the prawns, satisfied with the quality and ordered half a kilo. The old man took some in a sieve, walked the few feet to have them weighed, put them inside a plastic bag and handed it to me. The first thought that came to my mind was the impossibility that the weight was exactly half a kilo and the second thought that arose (judging from the look of the stallholders) was that of being cheated a couple of grams. Whilst digging into my purse I asked in Chinese about the adequacy of the weight. Un-offended, the old man briefly put the plastic bag on the machine which I took a quick glance and smiled in embarrassment. The old man smiled and said they can only give more and not less. At home whilst cleaning the prawns, I knew it was actually a lot more.

My lack of trust lies in my flaw in judging people by appearance. With hindsight the old guy actually looks honest enough but the other younger men in the stall look a bit like gangsters. Also my mother's mistrust of all stall holders in wet markets had rubbed onto me since young.

This is known as 'implicit bias' where we have subconscious fixed perceptions of people; or may be described as stereotyping on a less conscious level.

A study was carried out in the US known as the "Shoot, Don't Shoot Study" where participants sat in front of a computer with photos popping up very quickly of white and black man randomly. The man that appeared on the monitor either had a gun or a neutral object like a handphone in his hand. The participant was told to hit a 'shoot' key when they saw a threat and a 'don't shoot' key when they didn't see a threat. The findings have shown that out of implicit bias, some people are quicker to shoot an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man. This also partly explains the black crime implicit bias amongst policemen in the US.

I notice my implicit bias of people is not only confined to appearance. I would also stereotype people with specific educational, socio-economic, cultural and religious background. So I would have fixed perceptions of say people wearing tattoos, female China nationals, staunch Catholics or specialists who drive big luxurious cars just to name a few.

Implicit bias can be slowly and gradually corrected through gathering of experience or understanding which proves the fixed perception inaccurate, like my encounter. However it is best and faster dealt with from a conscious recognition of the pre-existing bias and cognitively checking our reactions and responses. After all how often are you lucky enough to be given much more than you deserve by burly looking tattooed men. I must learnt to refrain from shooting (negative remarks/responses) out of ingrained bias.