UNCONSCIOUS BIAS INFORMATION
Introduction to Unconscious Bias
Learn about the different types of bias and how bias can affect your decision making at work and beyond.
Unconscious bias refers to biases or shortcuts that our brains make that we are unaware of and which happen outside of our control. Our brains can assess what feels safe, familiar, valuable, and likeable, all behind the curtain of our conscious mind. In general, it’s a good thing we’re not conscious of everything our brain does; we’re able to make quick judgements and assessments of people and situations, and this is integral to our day to day function. Yet it comes at a cost, particularly when left unexamined. These snap judgements don’t just happen the moment you're in danger of need to react with urgency. They are always present, leading us to draw conclusions based on partial or incomplete information, and no matter what we actually believe or think consciously these little unconscious biases can hurt other people. So since assessing this important brain function isn’t really an option, what can we do to stop it from causing harm. First, recognize that accepting your own unconscious bias isn’t easy. It takes a particular level of comfort, even bravery, to take responsibility for choices that by definition you’ve had no conscious part in. It takes effort to even find out what these biases are. By accepting that they exist, you can uncover the unconscious biases. Question those snap decisions and immediate conclusions. Examine your impulses and instincts. Once your have a handle on how your unconscious biases manifest themselves, you’ll be ready to manage the impact your biases have on your decisions.
WHY IS IT HARD TO TALK ABOUT BIAS?
WHAT DOES BIAS LOOK LIKE?
WHAT TYPES OF BIAS EXIST?
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Why is it hard to talk about bias?
Where we sit on a bus or who we assume is in charge upon entering an office. How do we come to these conclusions? Are certain people more or less approachable? Sometimes these instant choices feel like magic. They aren’t. It’s your brain working often unconsciously to make a decision based off of all of your previous experiences in the world around us. Bias has a number of negative connotations— discrimination, bigotry, hatred. Things we don’t want to be associated with. At the core, bias is short cuts; they are a tool by which we categorize the familiar and unfamiliar, the safe and the dangerous. We have to automatically know a tiger is dangerous. We can’t analyze every tiger we come across before deciding to run. They also make functioning more efficient. Contrary to popular belief, biases are not inherently bad. What makes them bad is when they cause false assumptions. Admitting to having unconscious bias is hard because it means possibly showing implications for the kind of person you are. But really it’s about how you think. The more aware we are of our thought process, the more we can truly see the world.
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What does bias look like?
Riddle me this. A father and son are in a car crash, and they are rushed to the hospital. Their son needs to undergo surgery; just as he’s about to go surgery, the surgeon says that this boy is my son. How is that possible? Feel free to pause if you need a second. The answer is: the surgeon is the boy’s mother. If you didn’t guess that, don’t feel too bad. You’re part of the majority. In a study conducted by Boston University, only about 14% respondents came up with the mom’s a surgeon answer. The reason is the word surgeon has cultural associations with men whereas nurse has cultural associations with women. Curiously, life experiences that might suggest the respondent might solve the riddle, such as having a mother who is a doctor or self-describing as a feminist, have nothing to do with whether the respondents answered correctly. Unconscious biases like this are often not affected by our personal values and beliefs. In fact, they can directly contradict what we consciously think is correct. They are ingrained cultural assumptions we absorb early on in life. But how do you avoid having unconscious biases? It starts with awareness; once you know your decisions can be influenced by unconscious bias you can make choices based on all your options. Even the ones hiding in plain sight.
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What types of bias exist?
Unconscious can come in all different shapes and sizes depending on your particular culture and experience. So in order to examine your own particular bias, it’s helpful to identify specific categories it could fall into. When we think of bias, we often think about demographics: gender, race, sexuality, and age just to name a few, but there are other categories of bias that relate to individual people. Personality biases can impact how we respond to people based on how they present themselves. Think of a time you were in a brainstorming session where people were talking over each other to throw out ideas. If collaborating in this way is in your comfort zone, you might inadvertently judge someone who doesn’t feel comfortable sharing like that. There are also biases of life situation whether someone is married or single, what type of area they live in, or what their level of education is.
Learn tactics to identify and examine your biases, and develop tools to help keep unconscious bias out of your decision making.
IMPACT ON YOU AND THE WORLD?
IMPACT OF BIAS ON DECISION MAKING
AVOID INFLUENCE ON MY WORK?
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How does unaddressed bias impact you, your work, and the world?
A lot of the time our basic brain functions help us assess situations. Bias prompts us to relate to people differently. We don’t often pause to ask ourselves what might be driving our responses in these situations and whether it’s valid. As a result, we miss out on opportunities to connect, grow, and learn from others. The blind spots created by our particular unconscious biases can impact our work. We can unknowingly play into hurtful biases by doing things like habitually interrupting a teammate or designing a media strategy that is unintentionally offensive to a specific group of people. Plus, since we’re all so connected online, our bias choices can spread way more quickly than they would have a few years ago. One unintentional faux pas can get amplified on social media, rebound back onto us, and hurt our companies. The point isn’t to be afraid of posting on Twitter, but to take a second to think about the ramifications of what you do and to question your certainties. Our choices have a ripple effect. Think about this: When you refer someone for a job, you may think that person is the best suited for the role because they have attributes that are similar to you. That’s not inherently a bad thing. After all, if you’re suited for the job, then it makes sense to think someone similar would be too. But it can become problematic when the majority of people in your workplace share similar backgrounds. It creates a world where people of certain backgrounds are provided with advantages when it comes to hiring or promotions or choosing outside vendors. That means people outside the majority are put at a disadvantage. They’re made to feel like outsiders. We're all filled with blind spots, but the work of being our best selves is to be aware of those blind spots and the impact they have on our lives.
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Impact of bias on decision making
Unconscious biases affect many of the decisions we make in all aspects of our life, and the workplace is no exception. Multiple studies have shown that hiring and promotion practices are influenced by unconscious bias. BuzzFeed and Huffington Post put out a story about a man named Jose Zamora who applied to hundreds of jobs without receiving any responses, but when Jose changed his name to Joe Zamora on his resume he suddenly got follow ups on the same positions he applied for previously. Of course, these biases aren’t just restricted to names. In a study put out by the University of North Carolina, the clearest indicator of women getting a promotion was if their bosses had wives with careers of their own. Those intangible good feelings we have about a person stem from how closely they align with our unconscious idea of what’s normal. With that in mind, it’s important to take a step back and think about all the factors that influence our perception about our friends and colleagues. Who are you calling on in meetings? Whose ideas stick with you? Who do you think shows a lot of promise? No matter how well intentioned we are some of our answers to these questions and decisions about people are based in biases.and that fundamentally limits us. We may feel a sense of familiarity when we interact with people who share our demographic, educational, or temperamental traits. But our comfort zones cut us off from finding all the great talent, rewarding relationships that exist outside of them. Keep in mind unconscious bias is a factor in business decisions because it’s a factor in all decisions. It may be uncomfortable to try doing things different way outside of what’s familiar, but it’s okay.
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How do I keep bias from influencing my work?
Unconscious bias is part of life. Sometimes it’s helpful like when our instincts save us from physical harm, but sometimes it’s hurtful when you inadvertently say something that alienates someone else. When it comes to the workplace, it's important to minimize the impact your unconscious bias has. For your sake and the sake of those around you once key to minimizing the impact unconscious biases have on your work is to recognize a few typical risk factors these are things that might keep you from considering your decisions like high pressure situations distractions or intense emotional states. Keep in mind risk factors can come from both positive, negative emotional forms. People can make thoughtless decisions when they’re extremely angry and when they’re extremely happy. Another way to keep bias from influencing your work is to use devil’s advocate practices. Consciously make sure you’re presenting the other side of an argument or opinion so that you can be sure to consider multiple perspectives. As always, it’s about staying open and recognizing your assumptions. And on a similar note, try getting feedback on your work from multiple people everyone brings different experiences and opinions to the table. So no matter what you’re doing it can be helpful to get that full view of people around you. Hearing that your great idea is problematic might be difficult, but if you can stay open and listen then you will likely find that feedback valuable. Ultimately, when you carve out space to consider other perspectives and solicit opinions from others, you’ll also be working on two more strategies: taking your time before making a conclusion and practicing being open about other perspectives.
Learn tactics to identify and examine your biases, and develop tools to help keep unconscious bias out of your decision making.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ADDRESS BIAS?
OVERCOME YOUR UNCONSCIOUS BIAS
HOW DO I IDENTIFY MY BIASES?
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What does it mean to address bias?
Once you understand all humans have biases as a function of our human brain built by biology, then the real work can begin. It’s not enough to simply recognize bias in the abstract sense. There’s no participation trophy, but there’s a process narrowing your specific biases and dealing with them. The process of addressing biases starts with thinking about the way you think. It involves slowing down our thought process and questioning where our viewpoints about the world come from. To address bias, we have to recognize that the lens through which we view the world are really colored by our past experiences and the opinions of others around us. When we begin to acknowledge our biases, we can start the work of identifying our how viewpoints might affect our perceptions of how see the media or the limited experiences we might have with certain types of people. We can’t escape bias, but we can start to pause and reflection outside influences that might cause us to judge a person or situation unfairly based on our stuff and not what is actually occurring before us. You do have to be cognizant of what you’re perceiving and how it impacts your judgements. You can do some deep digging about yourself, but you have to maintain good bias neutralizing habits in order to really control how you think. Your brain doesn’t have to be your biases.
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Overcome your unconscious bias
There’s always more context that can give you a fuller picture of what you see. Something that we think we know can turn out to be something else. This is the process of opening up. The process of going from automatically sure to embracing uncertainty. It’s only when we get comfortable with the limits of our perception that we can truly grasp the possibility of there being so much more than meets the eye. This is how we can change our thinking about bias too— by recognizing that there are so many more points of view.
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How do I keep bias from influencing my work?
The first step in facing our unconscious biases is to uncover them but since they are unconscious, how can we learn what our biases even are? Well, there are a couple of ways to identify them. If you’re a fan of online quizzes, there’s one called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT, developed by Harvard University. They show you questions that pair a demographic group with good or bad descriptors, and the results show the amount of implicit bias you might have . the IAT isn’t an iron clad sentence of bias nor a det of how good a person you are, but it may give you some areas to focus on. Regardless of whether you take the IAT or not, the most essential way you can start working out your biases is to pay attention to your behavior and decisions. Get curious about how your brain works. Why you react to different situations in the way that you do. Suspending judgement about yourself is an important part of this. It’s not always comfortable to acknowledge less than favorable aspects about ourselves. But it is the only way to initiate the process of examination and change. You could have someone else give you notes. It might surprise you who you tend to call on in meetings, who you entrust projects to, if you interrupt anyone. Gaining insight into different experiences will help you understand your own point of view. Again though, be prepared to be uncomfortable because this process is not easy. Research shows that most of us surround ourselves with people who are similar to us which means that stretching beyond your usual circle may be challenging. Most importantly train yourself to question certainty. Your judgement may be totally sound based on your initial impressions, but you could still be missing something. Examining your thought process and seeking out fresh perspectives will help you shine a spotlight on your blindspots. Then once you’ve found them write them down. Forcing yourself to actually articulate your biases will help you make them more real and help you get started on addressing them.
More and more people are becoming aware of the ways unconscious bias can affect their personal and professional lives. As a result, we’re seeing more and more diversity efforts from people and teams and even companies. While these efforts are generally well-meaning, they can go awry if they are not implemented correctly. Here are a few risks you can watch out for to help you succeed. One risk of diversity efforts comes when putting emphasis on quotas instead of processes that can help actually increase diversity. Even if you’re not an executive or hiring manager, you could make plenty of decisions that are based on meeting some sort of quota. Little things like asking someone for an opinion or putting them on a project so they can represent a demographic. But if you’re focused exclusively on things like I need to work with more people who look like X, who do Y or who thinks Z. you run the risk of generalizing more which means playing further into a bias plus you could fall into tokenism which means making more of a symbolic effort to be inclusive rather than taking more meaningful steps another risk related to tokenism is focusing only on certain demographics. Our unconscious biases may affect the way we view diversity, leading us to only seeking out some characteristics. One common misconception is thinking of diversity only in terms of race or ethnicity. But that’s really just one way to look at diversity fostering an inclusive environment means making comfortsble space for people who have different ways of thinking, beliefs and views, gender, sex, social status, and other things that aren’t necessarily easy to see. With that in mind, there are ways to make diversity efforts successful, implementing practices like blind hiring or intentional review policies for large decisions can help cultivate a diverse environment without running the risk of filling up categories. And on a personal level the key is openness. Relate to people as individuals while not ignoring the reality of collective identities you may not share with each other.
Examining your unconscious is the first step in transforming your behaviors and decisions. But it’s certainly not the last. In fact, the truth is that there is not the last step. Working on your bias can be a lifetime pursuit. However, as you’re identifying and examining your own biases, you can take action to help and encourage your colleagues and your company to do the same. The first action you can take to bring others on your journey are to model behaviors that reduce unconscious bias. As you’re working on your own biases, include others in your slow down and questioning processes. Ask others the questions you’re asking yourself. So if you’re a part of a team deciding who should get a promotion don’t just question your decision making process challenge the group to lay out the reasons it should be a certain candidate and not someone else. The second step is explaining. You’ve already asked them to take part in the process, so offer the thinking behind your questions. Explain that you;re not just asking questions to annoy the team or delay the decision. You want to make sure you’re giving someone the promotion because someone deserves it and not because you like them. Once you’ve got people on board, it’s time for the third action. Turn these processes into policies . make the slowing down and questioning processes a permanent part of the system. Next time there’s a promotion decision there can be several data points that candidates must meet. While you’ll always need to be vigilant about unconscious bias. Having systems in place to help do some of the work for you. It will likely never be easy to combat the native effects of unconscious bias but you can make it a little easier by bringing other people into the process and creating an environment where you reduce unconscious bias together