Unconscious bias: what is it and can it be eliminated?

Spearheaded by a team of social psychologists at the University of Washington and Yale, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) promised to lift the veil on people’s subconscious attitudes towards others.Upon publishing their landmark paper in 1998, the team described “a new tool that measures the unconscious roots of prejudice” that they said affected 90-95% of people.Unconscious bias – the subject of the Guardian’s Bias in Britain series – offered a new explanat