Unconscious Biases and Attitudes of Young Japanese People Toward Visibly Different Immigrant Women in Japan

In 2020, research was carried out to understand the unconscious biases of young Japanese people towards visibly different non-Japanese immigrant women in Japan. A qualitative survey was conducted with students at two universities to discover young people’s attitudes towards visibly different women and their experiences of discrimination. The study focused on answering the questions: What unconscious biases do Japanese young people have? and What reactions do Japanese young people have to visibly different immigrant women’s experiences of discrimination? Results showed that young participants were most uncomfortable with imagining interacting with people they did not know about from media or previous experiences. They often gave reasons for feeling uncomfortable because of unfamiliarity with the visible differences of women shown in pictures in the survey. Upon reading about real-life traumatic experiences of non-Japanese women residents during interactions with Japanese people, many study participants were sympathetic. Several participants’ comments showed awareness of diversity issues and criticized the discrimination experienced by the non-Japanese storyteller. However, there were also comments that simply ignored the women’s experience or discounted them. This study was limited in scope. Broader in-depth research to understand discrimination caused by unconscious appearance-biases is necessary.