Implicit Bias

Implicit bias is what you think or have been taught to think about other people on a subconscious level. These subconscious thoughts are ingrained into your thinking over time and sometimes you may not even notice them. Typically when you think of biases and stereotypes that is based on your explicit bias and not really reflecting on what your brain subconsciously is telling you about a person. I think it is very important for OT students and practitioners to be taught about implicit bias because by having to reflect on these thoughts can aid in their professional development and to give their clients the best care.
After listening to the session materials and taking the survey I have learned a lot about implicit bias and what I can do to reflect and address my own. The first way you can examine your own implicit bias is to take a survey, I took the Project Implicit survey about associations between men and women and strong words and weak words. Another way to address your own implicit bias is to expand your friend group or professional interactions to include more people who you do not have much in common with. This exposes you to many new concepts and cultures for you to learn from. Lastly, you can do self reflections on different topics and then discuss those reflections with a friend or a colleague. There are many ways to address your own implicit biases, these are just a few that I came across. My main take away from this course session is to always self reflect on how you view others and their cultures before making assumptions because whether you know it or not, you could be letting your own bias take away from someones well being.