Mahzarin Banaji
Indian-born American social psychologist of implicit social cognition
Social psychologist at Harvard who studies the gap between conscious attitudes and implicit associations. She developed the concept of implicit bias with Anthony Greenwald and uses the Implicit Association Test, introduced by Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz in 1998, in her laboratory.
Why this person matters
Banaji's work with Greenwald brought implicit attitudes and stereotypes to prominence in social psychology and public debate about bias. The 1998 test paper was by Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz; Banaji later co-founded Project Implicit with Greenwald and Brian Nosek. The test remains contested.
Main contributions
Implicit social cognition
With Anthony Greenwald she wrote a 1995 paper on implicit social cognition (attitudes, self-esteem and stereotypes), and she was a co-author of a 2002 paper proposing a unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem and self-concept. Harvard says she and collaborators coined the term implicit bias in the 1990s.
Implicit Association Test
Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz introduced the test in 1998. According to the National Academy of Sciences, Banaji's laboratory uses it to study how people automatically rely on social categories such as race, gender and age. She, Greenwald and Brian Nosek later co-founded Project Implicit.
Public communication of implicit bias
She co-wrote Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People (2013) with Greenwald. In 2018 she, Greenwald and Nosek shared the AAAS Golden Goose Award for their implicit bias work.
Context and limits
The IAT is debated. A 2009 meta-analysis led by Greenwald concluded that it predicts behaviour independently of explicit measures; a 2013 meta-analysis led by Oswald argued the earlier work overestimated the link and found implicit measures only weakly predictive, no better than explicit measures. A 2022 editorial calls predictive value for behaviour weak, added value over self-report negligible, and low temporal stability an unresolved issue. Proponents, including Greenwald, have responded to critics.
In your introductory course
Social psychology.Appears in the prejudice and discrimination section of social psychology as the main example of implicit bias, and in discussions of how far a reaction-time score can predict behaviour.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 12.5. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1986
Joined Yale University, where she held posts until 2001.
- 1995
Published the Greenwald and Banaji paper on implicit social cognition.
- 1998
The Implicit Association Test paper by Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- 2002
Moved to Harvard University, where she held the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professorship at the Radcliffe Institute (2002 to 2008) and became Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics.
- 2013
Published Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People with Anthony Greenwald.
Sources
- Harvard Center for Ethics, Mahzarin R. BanajiUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- American Academy of Political and Social Science, About Mahzarin R. BanajiSociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- National Academy of Sciences, Mahzarin R. Banaji directory entrySociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- The Global Indian, Mahzarin Banaji (feature)Reference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Mahzarin BanajiReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Implicit-association testReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Frontiers in Psychology, Editorial: Twenty Years After Implicit Association Test (2022)Original work. Text passages inspected.