Reorienting Implicit Bias Education in Organizations: The MAIBE Checklist

Abstract

Implicit (unintentional) biases related to social categories (including race, gender, and age) are often seen as impediments to belonging and success in diverse organizations. Indeed, organizations around the world expend considerable effort and resources to implement educational programs with the stated goal of addressing — and even eradicating — such biases. However, in recent years, implicit bias education has come under scrutiny for several reasons, including via claims that implicit bias (a) is inherently unchangeable, (b) has no real-world analogs, (c) is unrelated to, and detracts focus from, biased behaviors, (d) provides an excuse for discrimination, and (e) is a structural problem and thus requires structural solutions. After refuting these critiques, this review introduces the MAIBE checklist to help organizations decide if implicit bias education is worth their investment based on whether it (a) includes measurable benchmarks (rather than assuming success), (b) foregrounds epistemic agency (rather than treating individuals as passive consumers of information), (c) is integrated into a larger toolbox (rather than administered in isolation), (d) is broad (rather than light-touch), and (e) is evidence-based (rather than unscientific). The article concludes by calling for extended collaboration between academic psychologists and organizational decision-makers to synergistically improve both basic science and institutional practices.