We begin to pick up prejudices and stereotypes as early as the age of three. Knowing there is a disconnect between public opinion (for example that we treat everyone equally) and the amount of discrimination that still exists (and is found over and over in court) it is likely than hidden or unconscious bias plays a key role.
What is unconscious bias?
Unconscious (or implicit) biases are the associations we make which are outside our conscious awareness. These biases are triggered by our brain making quick judgments and assessments without them passing through our conscious thoughts. They are influenced by background, experience, societal stereotypes and cultural context. It is important to remember that unconscious bias is not solely about race, gender, age or other visible or protected diversity characteristics. We can have hidden biases related to everything from accent and height to body weight and clothing. Most notably unconscious bias affects everyone and can have a major influence on our attitudes and behaviours, can influence decisions in the workplace and can contribute to inequality, for example in recruitment processes, pay reviews and appraisals.
Do you have biases?
Lets have a go at trying to identify some hidden or unconscious biases that you may have. This particular activity is adapted from a study (Pendry, Driscoll, & Field).
See if you can solve the following problem:
A father and son were involved in a car accident in which the father was killed and the son was seriously injured. The father was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident and his body was taken to a local morgue.
The son was rushed by ambulance to a nearby hospital and was immediately wheeled into an emergency operating theatre. A trauma surgeon was called. Upon arrival and seeing the patient, the
attending surgeon exclaimed “Oh no, that’s my son!”
How do you explain this?”
We know that a huge 40% of people faced with this challenge do not think of the most plausible answer—which is of course that the surgeon is the boy’s mother.
The association between surgeon and man is strong enough to interfere with logical problem-solving in a significant number of cases. Instead many create elaborate stories to explain the puzzle, involving adoption, abduction or that the ‘father’ in the car was a priest (myself included the first time I read the problem through).
This exercise illustrates just how powerful our hidden biases can be.
Types of Bias
Conformity Bias
Where decision making is affected by group peer pressure, the bias towards going with the majority rather than holding a separate view.
Similarity / Affinity Bias
Bias towards people with similar traits or characteristics to our own or to those considered to be beautiful.
Overconfidence Bias
Where confidence in their own abilities is so great that that we rely on intuition to make decisions.
Confirmation Bias
Making a snap decision based on perception and then focus on finding evidence to justify initial assessment.
Halo effect
A focus on one positive characteristic, which then blinkers us to the strength or weaknesses of other traits. The golden halo obscures red flags in other areas.
Horn effect
Opposite to halo; one negative trait clouds our judgement of other traits.
Primary and recency bias
The bias towards first and last candidates as we recall the more clearly.
Contrast / judgement bias
The tendency to compare each individual to the one immediately before rather than letting it stand out on its own merit. This allows goal posts to move over time.
Intuition
The tendency to trust our gut, making it easy to be affected by bias, emotion and appearance rather than more relevant data.
What are my biases?
If you are interested in identifying some of your own biases there are several online bias tests available. We advise you to check that any you choose to take are based in established research and have high levels of validity. Take a look at these Implicit Association Tests.
Bias management
Training
Training in isolation is not the answer. Studies have found that programmes that simply help individuals to identify and recognise a range of biases tend to have little impact as a result of the discomfort many people experience during the process of raising their awareness of their own biases.
What we do know is that training focussed on personal change through the following four elements makes a significant difference to bias management:
- Disorienting experience
- Critical reflection and dialogue
- Skills acquisition and behaviour change
- Action and feedback
Culture change
One-off training may initially raise awareness but in fact have limited impact over time on behaviour, thinking, decision-making or behaviours around bias. For the best chance of success, education aimed at changing organisational culture and structure on a long-term basis have a greater chance of success.
Unconscious bias training from Redway HR
We offer unconscious bias training harnessing the four elements for personal change noted above, within the framework of organisational culture. In this way we capitalise on research based methods for identifying and managing of unconscious bias.
Get in touch today to find out more about our training programmes.