This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta. I was on Facebook the other day when a friend

request came in. I don't have a great memory for faces and names, so I found myself trying

to figure out if I had met this person somewhere.

But then, at the back of my mind, I remembered a study. It said my friendship choices on

Facebook might be shaped by biases outside of my conscious awareness in my hidden brain.

Michelle Hebel is a psychologist at Rice University who ran the Facebook study. She designed

fictitious profiles for two men and two women. Both men were named Michael Davis, both

women, were Jennifer Davis. All the characters were African American. The only real difference

between the profiles were the photos. One Photoshop version of Michael Davis and Jennifer

Davis had lighter skin. The other had darker skin.

Mickey Hebel sent out friend requests on Facebook on behalf of these fictitious characters

to more than a thousand people in a big American city. Since these were invented characters,

most of the requests were declined. But there was a big disparity in how often whites accepted

friend requests from the darker skin, Michael's and Jennifer's.

People were less likely to friend them. They were less likely particularly to friend the

dark black males.

If you follow these kinds of experiments, this finding is disappointing, but not surprising.

Using similar experimental methods, researchers have found disparities in the way professors

spend time with students, how companies select job applicants for interviews, even how

legislators respond to constituents. But something new is happening today. The bias decisions

we once made in interpersonal settings are now being made on giant online platforms

where our actions have the potential to affect many more people.

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