Unconscious bias, is it a general term for biases?

No, I believe it is inappropriate to handle it that way from various perspectives.

There are many psychological terms with the word “bias” besides latent bias. For example, there are confirmation bias and normalcy bias. Confirmation bias refers to “the tendency to collect and emphasize evidence that supports one’s beliefs or hypotheses, while ignoring evidence that contradicts them.” Normalcy bias refers to “the psychological tendency to regard certain levels of abnormality as within the normal range, such as thinking ‘it won’t be a big deal’ or ‘I’ll be fine’ in the face of disasters or risks.”

As mentioned earlier, implicit bias usually refers to implicit attitudes and stereotypes that influence our perceptions, judgments, and behaviors, often contradicting our explicit beliefs and values. Implicit bias is not treated as a general term for various biases, such as confirmation bias or normalcy bias, which are referred to as cognitive biases.

Given the history of the term “unconscious” being replaced by “implicit,” it is appropriate to list “unconscious bias” alongside “implicit bias.” Therefore, it is also appropriate not to treat unconscious bias as a general term for biases.

A search for peer-reviewed articles using “unconscious bias” in PsycArticles revealed that “unconscious bias” was used synonymously with “implicit bias,” supporting the above statement. (IJapan Society for Implicit Bias Research: American Psychological Association (APA) Database search: Unconscious < Implicit (jp-society-for-implicit-bias-research.blogspot.com)).

Additionally, a search on Google Scholar for “unconscious bias” and “implicit bias” and an examination of the top 10 influential papers for each term showed that both unconscious bias and implicit bias were interpreted similarly, further supporting the above statement (Japan Society for Implicit Bias Research: Public data including general publications: Unconscious < Implicit (jp-society-for-implicit-bias-research.blogspot.com)).

In Japanese: 日本アンコンシャス・バイアス研究会: アンコンシャス・バイアス、それはバイアスの総称？？ (bias-research.blogspot.com)