Intro to Cognitive Psychology Week 5

Zach Tran

Intro to Cognitive Psychology

10/9/23

Biases in Facial Processing

    Biases in facial processing can refer to both systematic and unconscious preferences or distortions in the way that individuals perceive and interpret the faces of others. They are significant factors in everyday life for people that can affect how you perceive others both in noticed and unnoticed ways. These processes are affected by a combination of social, cultural, and cognitive factors. In this week's blog post, I will specifically be discussing the bias in facial processing of own-race bias.

    Own-race bias is a cognitive phenomenon in which individuals show a greater ability to recognize and accurately identify the faces of individuals from their own racial or ethnic group compared to that of other racial or ethnic groups. In other words, when you have an own-race bias, you are more able to remember and distinguish the faces of people when they are the same race or ethnic background as you. In addition, own-race bias often means that you also have greater difficulty in recognizing, distinguishing, and identifying the faces of people of different races or ethnic backgrounds. 

    Personally, I have had many experiences with own-race bias in the past, although not as something I've had myself, but felt and perceived from others. Growing up, I was an Asian-American in a predominantly white school and community. As a result, many of my teachers would mix me up at first with the other student in my grade who was also of Vietnamese descent. This also resulted at times in teachers also mixing me up with my younger brother, who is three years younger than me. As time went on, my teachers would begin to recognize me better and mix me up with my the other student and my brother less often. But these personal experiences showed me that own-race bias is very real and can have very strong personal and mental effects on a person.

    I believe that own-race bias can often relate to personal views or actions of racism, simply because of the strong racial component that is present in both. I do believe that for both, however, some symptoms and habits are learned growing up or fostered in the environment you are raised in, and for some, they may not know any better. In cases like this, it is important to point out these biases and prejudices, and it is very impossible to learn from them and improve oneself. For own-race biases, I think making an effort to spend more time around people whose faces you may difficulty distinguishing and recognizing can lead to a big improvement in being unable to recognize and distinguish.

    

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