Events of the past year cast a new spotlight on the racial injustice that plagues our country. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd’s horrific death brought new momentum to the Black Lives Matter movement. George Floyd inspired millions nationwide to take a stand against racial injustice, to include inside the military. It spurred many to reflect about our Black teammates and how we have failed them. Racial inequity infects our military just as it does society at large. We have a duty to fix it. We need systemic change, and we can’t wait any longer. Social psychology offers promising strategies we can use to break implicit bias and begin moving towards racial equity within our ranks.
Racial Bias in the Military
On June 16, 2020, the Government Accountability Office presented its research on racial disparity in the military justice system to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel. The GAO’s report revealed that Black service members were twice as likely as white service members to face general and special courts-martial. They were also more likely to be subjected to summary courts-martial, non-judicial punishment, and criminal investigations. Additionally, a December 2020 Air Force Inspector General Racial Disparity Review found that young Black enlisted service members were almost twice as likely as their white counterparts to be involuntarily discharged based on misconduct. Law enforcement officials were also twice as likely to apprehend Black service members. Moreover, Black service members voiced a lack of confidence in the Air Force’s disciplinary and developmental systems. Most recently, the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee also noted troubling findings concerning racism in units.
Despite the renewed attention, racial disparity is not a new military problem. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy convened the Gesell Committee to investigate rampant racial discrimination across the military and to recommend changes to policy. Subsequently, a 1972 Task Force on the Administration of Military Justice in the Armed Forces examined racial disparities in the military justice system. It found that the military had discriminated on the basis of race and ethnicity. Despite a half century of DoD studies and policies aimed to combat racial discrimination, we have not solved the problem. Our society and culture have developed and sustained racial bias for over 400 years; it will take significant cultural and organizational reforms to rid it from the military.
Awareness of Implicit Racial Bias
While most people are not explicitly racist, most people have unconscious biases that undermine their non-prejudiced values. It’s important to understand the difference. Individuals exhibit explicit bias when they are consciously aware of their feelings and attitudes toward different groups and behave accordingly. Implicit racial bias refers to the unconscious associations we make about racial groups. It includes both unconscious stereotypes (beliefs about social groups) and attitudes (feelings about social groups). These biases result from repeated exposure to cultural stereotypes. They often influence our actions in ways beyond our control.
Implicit racial bias is harming our Black teammates. Implicit bias can be in direct contradiction to a person’s espoused beliefs and values. It does not require feelings of hostility; it only requires knowledge of a stereotype to produce discriminatory actions. Research has shown that implicit racial bias detrimentally affects Black people at all stages of the criminal justice system. In addition to the disparity in disciplinary actions, research has shown that Black officers are less likely than white officers to be promoted and retained in the military’s field grade ranks.
The first step to stop the harm to our Black teammates is to recognize the implicit racial bias within ourselves. Researchers using measures like the Implicit Association Test (IAT) have found that the majority of Americans tested carry implicit negative attitudes toward Black people and associate Black people with negative stereotypes. The IAT is short and is a great way to gain self-awareness of one’s implicit bias.
Strategies for Change
Awareness of our own implicit racial bias does not mean much unless we’re also equipped with strategies to take action against it. Research shows that implicit racial bias is hard to change. However, social psychology offers a couple approaches that may yield real results in breaking implicit bias, or at least the effects of it. One approach is the prejudice habit-breaking intervention, an empowerment-based approach. Another promising approach combines a growth mindset and perspective-gaining. Strategies from both of these approaches offer promising results that can be applied in a military context.
Refine Your Leadership Approach
Researchers have come to recognize the difficulty in achieving long-term reductions in implicit bias. As a result, some have instead aimed to change the consequences of bias, rather than the bias itself. School researchers focused on instilling in teachers a growth mindset and perspective-taking. They taught teachers to gain perspective from students, to believe students’ behavior could improve, and believe their relationships with students could improve as well. They found that an integration of these strategies helped stop racial bias from impacting school disciplinary decisions. Military leaders can easily implement these types of strategies if they prioritize the time to do so.
Growth mindset
Leaders should learn and adopt a growth mindset. It’s the simple underlying belief in the possibility of growth – that people can change and develop through effort and experience. Specifically, leaders should reflect on how soldiers develop competencies and attributes. Leaders should think about how their relationships with soldiers can grow and how they can impact a soldier’s life. Many people can recall a teacher who helped them through a tough time or inspired them when they doubted themselves. Similarly, military leaders should think about what they can do to bring out the best in their soldiers.
Prespective-gaining
Leaders should spend more time listening to subordinates. Leaders should actively listen to soldiers talk about their backgrounds, families, interests, worries, struggles, and successes. Perspective-gaining leads to increased empathy, a sense of connection, and strengthened bonds.
In the school study, compared to the control group, teachers who had interventions emphasizing the growth mindset and perspective-gaining felt less troubled by a Black student’s misbehavior and less likely to think the misbehavior was indicative of a pattern. Moreover, they were more likely to feel able to build strong relationships and were less likely to expect the student to get suspended in the future. Military leaders—in working toward achievement of racial equity—should think about refining leadership approaches with a focus on adopting a growth mindset and taking time to listen to soldiers.
Develop Your Bias-Breaking Toolkit
Unfortunately, most research tends to suggest that easy-to-implement strategies don’t produce long-term reductions in bias. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope though. The prejudice habit-breaking intervention offers a promising model to get motivated people to “break the habit” of their implicit bias. It’s an empowerment-based approach developed and tested over the past ten years. The strategies focus on slowing down our thinking and relying less on gut reactions which are often influenced by our bias. Below I offer some strategies leaders can put in their toolkit and start using now.
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Oct. 6, 2020. (U.S. Army photo by Audrey Chappell)
Stereotype Replacement
The stereotype replacement strategy involves detecting stereotypic thoughts and replacing them with non-stereotypic responses. The three-step strategy consists of a detect phase, a reflect phase, and a reject phase. First, you detect that your unconscious stereotypes are irrationally influencing your conscious thoughts. Next, you reflect on why you are having these thoughts. Finally, you reject the thought by replacing it with other possible explanations of the situation.
How might a leader use this strategy? Let’s say you’re a platoon sergeant waiting to start a unit run. You detect yourself irrationally thinking that some of your Black soldiers are disruptive and unruly. With some reflection, however, you realize that you may be having these thoughts because of the Black troublemaker stereotype. You reject the stereotype and reframe the situation. You recognize that the soldiers are in fact spirited and displaying camaraderie.
Perspective-Taking
Perspective-taking involves imagining what it would feel like to be in the position of a member of a different group. Leaders can easily apply this technique in their daily interactions. For example, say you’re a brigade XO angry about how one of the Black staff officers just addressed you during a meeting. You are about to storm down to his office to counsel him about his disrespectful tone, but then you decide to slow down. Furthermore, you recall he had an idea in the meeting, and you didn’t exactly let him explain himself. Was his tone really aggressive when you cut him off? You then remember he has had to fight for a lot in his career. Taking the time to slow down, you try to imagine the world through his eyes for a few moments before letting your temper get the best of you.
Individuation
Individuating involves going beyond racial categories by paying attention to the individual characteristics of others. This allows you to learn about the individual based on personal, rather than group, characteristics. Put yourself in the boots of a first sergeant going to the company barracks to meet a newly arrived soldier. As he opens his door to greet you, you see not just his dark skin, but notice the college logo on his Class of 2020 t-shirt. By noticing the t-shirt and not just his dark skin, you gather more information. Particularly, you now know he is likely college-educated. Therefore, any assumptions based upon an uneducated stereotype would be inaccurate.
Increase Intergroup Contact
This strategy involves making positive, personal contact with members of stereotyped groups. Contact involving individuals of equal status, intergroup cooperation rather than competition, and common goals may be especially effective at reducing bias. For instance, suppose you are a captain in charge of planning the installation-wide extremism stand-down. Perceptively, you recognize it is a great opportunity to collaborate with various subject matter experts from across the installation. You reach out to various Black and other minority captains across the installation and ask them to join you on the project. Once you complete the planning, you continue to collaborate with this racially diverse group.
Situational Explanations for Behavior
This strategy involves actively considering situational explanations for behavior, rather than jumping to dispositional explanations. Say you are a platoon leader and one of your sergeants comes to you complaining about the new Black private. He complains that he is so irresponsible and has already been late to formation twice that week. However, you are aware that irresponsibility may be a Black-stereotypic trait. You remind yourself and your sergeant to think about what situationally may have caused the soldier’s failures to report on time. What is going on in that soldier’s life? Is someone sick at home? Is there a new baby? Is he having sleep issues? You stop yourself and your sergeant from assuming the soldier’s nature is the problem. Together you work to figure out the situational explanation.
Conclusion
Despite decades of failure to eradicate racial bias and discrimination within our ranks, I believe the vast majority of us care about the problem, are open to confronting ourselves, and are motivated to do the work to make positive and enduring changes. Our military certainly needs systemic changes in order to wipe out the destructive effects of racial bias. We can implement the bias-breaking strategies outlined here to start effecting change now. The more we practice these strategies, the more they will become automatic and ultimately bring our behavior and decisions in line with our nonprejudiced values.
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