What if one of the biggest debates in inclusion has been built on asking the wrong question?
For years, discussions about implicit bias have often focused on whether people consciously hold prejudiced attitudes. Yet a major 2026 review by B. Keith Payne, published in the Annual Review of Psychology, suggests the science has moved well beyond that debate.
The concept of implicit bias emerged because researchers noticed something puzzling. Explicit expressions of prejudice were declining, yet inequalities in employment, education, housing, and other outcomes persisted. This led psychologists to explore whether social stereotypes and evaluations could influence behaviour in ways that were not always openly expressed.
One of the most important insights from the review is that implicit bias is not simply synonymous with “unconscious bias”. Research increasingly shows that people can often recognise patterns in their own implicit responses, but the meaning they attach to those responses is complex and shaped by context. The simple distinction between conscious and unconscious no longer captures the reality of what researchers observe.
The review also addresses a major criticism of the field. Early theories often treated implicit bias as a stable individual trait that could reliably predict behaviour. Evidence has shown this assumption to be too simplistic. Individual scores can fluctuate across situations and over time, and their ability to predict behaviour is often modest.
Rather than seeing this as a failure, Payne argues that it has led to a more sophisticated understanding. Implicit bias appears to be influenced not only by individuals but also by the environments they inhabit. Context matters.
This shift has important implications for inclusion practice. If bias is shaped by social environments, then organisations cannot focus solely on changing individual attitudes. They must also examine the systems, structures, norms, and cues that influence behaviour every day.
The review highlights evidence that when implicit bias is examined at the level of communities, organisations, or regions, stronger links emerge with outcomes such as educational disparities, health inequalities, and differential treatment. This suggests that bias may be as much a property of systems as it is of individuals.
For leaders, this is an important reminder. Inclusion is not simply about identifying biased people. It is about understanding how workplace environments can unintentionally reinforce certain assumptions, behaviours, and patterns of decision making.
The question is no longer only, “Who is biased?”
It may be equally important to ask, “What in our environment is making particular biases more likely to emerge?”
At Inclusive Leadership Company, this is why our work focuses not only on individual awareness, but also on the organisational conditions that shape inclusion. Through our keynotes, masterclasses, workshops, assessments, and coaching, we help leaders understand how systems and everyday practices can either reinforce or reduce bias.
You can read the original article here: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-030525-043416
