Biography
Kate Ratliff’s research investigates implicit biases and other barriers to diversity, equity and inclusion. Kate is working to understand how biases form, how they operate, how they affect decision-making and behavior and how they can be changed.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Race Attitudes
Implicit Bias
Diversity & Inclusion
Gender Attitudes
Prejudice & Stereotyping
Media Appearances (5)
IU researchers trace the outlines of two cultures within science
EurekAlert! online
2020-09-14
In the world of scientific research today, there's a revolution going on - over the last decade or so, scientists across many disciplines have been seeking to improve the workings of science and its methods.
Gainesville Shares New Plans To Address Racial Equity At Kickoff Event
WUFT online
2020-01-23
In order to educate the public about implicit or unconscious biases, Kate Ratliff, executive director of Project Implicit Inc. and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida, led the audience through the interactive Implicit Association Test. She said the goal was to have people reflect on their hidden biases and show how they can be a barrier to equity.
Study: Sexism a powerful predictor for some Trump voters
UF News online
2018-01-02
“I don’t know how willing people are to realize or admit the role sexism might play in their behavior,” said Liz Redford, a UF doctoral candidate who co-authored the study with Project Implicit director and UF professor Kate Ratliff, Project Implicit researcher and UF professor Colin Smith, and UF graduate student John Conway. “Most Americans would probably like to think that sexism is not a big factor in their voting choices, but this forces us to consider whether political decisions are impacted by that.”
Measuring the implicit biases we may not even be aware of
UF News online
2017-10-31
When most people think of bias, they imagine an intentional thought or action – for example, a conscious belief that women are worse than men at math or a deliberate decision to pull someone over because of his or her race. Gender and race biases in the United States have historically been overt, intentional and highly visible. But, changes to the legal system and norms guiding acceptable behavior in the U.S. have led to clear reductions in such explicit bias.
Measuring the implicit biases we may not even be aware we have
The Conversation online
2017-10-29
When most people think of bias, they imagine an intentional thought or action – for example, a conscious belief that women are worse than men at math or a deliberate decision to pull someone over because of his or her race. Gender and race biases in the United States have historically been overt, intentional and highly visible. But, changes to the legal system and norms guiding acceptable behavior in the U.S. have led to clear reductions in such explicit bias.
Articles (5)
Can the Implicit Association Test Serve as a Valid Measure of Automatic Cognition? A Response to Schimmack (2021)
Perspectives on Psychological ScienceBenedek Kurdi, et al.
2020-05-06
Much of human thought, feeling, and behavior unfolds automatically. Indirect measures of cognition capture such processes by observing responding under corresponding conditions (e.g., lack of intention or control). The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is one such measure. The IAT indexes the strength of association between categories such as “planes” and “trains” and attributes such as “fast” and “slow” by comparing response latencies across two sorting tasks (planes–fast/trains–slow vs. trains–fast/planes–slow).
Illusory-Correlation Effects on Implicit and Explicit Evaluation
Personality and Social Psychology BulletinPieter Van Dessel, et al .
2020-12-14
Research suggests that people sometimes perceive a relationship between stimuli when no such relationship exists (i.e., illusory correlation). Illusory-correlation effects are thought to play a central role in the formation of stereotypes and evaluations of minority versus majority groups, often leading to less favorable impressions of minorities.
Open science, communal culture, and women’s participation in the movement to improve science
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesMary C. Murphy, et al.
2020-09-14
Science is undergoing rapid change with the movement to improve science focused largely on reproducibility/replicability and open science practices. This moment of change—in which science turns inward to examine its methods and practices—provides an opportunity to address its historic lack of diversity and noninclusive culture.
The Implicit Association Test at age 20: What is known and what is not known about implicit bias
PsyArXivAnthony G. Greenwald, et al.
2020-04-21
Scientific interest in unintended discrimination that can result from implicit attitudes and stereotypes (implicit biases) has produced a large corpus of empirical findings. In addition to much evidence for validity and usefulness of Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures, there have been psychological critiques of empirical findings and theoretical disagreements about interpretation of IAT findings.
“Why MANtoring is not the solution. A Rebuttal to ‘The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance.’”
PsyArXivPatricia L. Mabry, et al.
2020-12-21
The findings of AlShebli Makovi & Rahwan1 highlight an endemic problem in science: co-authoring with men is associated with greater numbers of citations for junior scientists than co-authoring with women. The reasons for this likely stem from a long history and culture in science where White, straight, cisgender men are the dominant force.
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