Are you conscious of your Unconscious Bias?

Unconscious biases, also known as implicit biases, are the underlying attitudes and stereotypes that people unconsciously attribute to another person or group of people that affect how they understand and engage with a person or group.

Our upbringing, background, cultural environment, the social circles we move in, and our subjective experiences shape how we view the world around us. We tell ourselves that we are open-minded and unbiased , but we make snap decisions and form instant opinions constantly, the moment we meet a new person or experience a new thing. Our brains are programmed to do that to take the weight of processing things off our conscious mind’s hands, as it were.

Unconsciously we process a huge amount of information and make our decisions based on something we call ‘a gut feeling’ but which is actually the result of a lifetime of experience and learning, processed at high speed before we’ve had time to be consciously aware of it.

Do you know?

• We receive 11 million bits of information every moment.
• We can consciously process only 40 bits.

What is the Difference Between Conscious and Unconscious Bias?

To understand the difference between conscious and unconscious bias we need to consider how thinking works. When we think ‘consciously’ we are logical and rational. We weigh up facts and consider the bigger picture. When we think ‘unconsciously’ we are drawing on feelings, urges, and memories which are not necessarily logical.

The Kanizsa triangle illusion makes us realize the way our visual systems work — which we do not notice in our everyday experience. Looking at the figure, most people will have the visual experience of an apparent brightness contour defining an upright triangle which is occluding three black discs and a second, inverted triangle outlined in black. Of course, these triangles do not in fact exist.

Gender Bias:

Gender bias is the tendency to prefer one gender over another. It is a form of unconscious bias, or implicit bias, which occurs when one individual unconsciously attributes certain attitudes and stereotypes to another person or group of people. These ascribed behaviors affect how the individual understands and engages with others.

In addition to gender bias, there are a number of other types of unconscious bias that disproportionately affect women’s success in the workplace, which include:

• Performance Support Bias: Performance support bias occurs when employers, managers, and colleagues provide more resources and opportunities to one gender (typically men) over another.
• Performance Review Bias: Performance review bias occurs when employers, managers, and colleagues review an employee of one gender differently from another gender — even when the evaluations are purely merit-based.
• Performance Reward Bias: Performance reward bias occurs when employers, managers, and colleagues reward an employee of one gender differently from another gender. Rewards may be in the form of promotions, raises, or other merit-based rewards.
• Glass Ceiling: A major result of these biases have contributed to the creation of the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is a metaphor for the evident but intangible hierarchical impediment that prevents minorities and women from achieving elevated professional success.

Gender Bias statistics:

• In 2014, a report published by SPARK Movement, an activist organization, stated that there were a large gender and race imbalance in the number of Doodles shown by Google and that most Doodles were honoring white males.
• 5 of the 14 top barriers women face in the workplace are related to discrimination and gender bias.
• Both men and women are twice as likely to hire a male candidate.
• Half of the men believe women are well-represented at their company when 90% of senior leaders are men.
• 34% of men and women believe male executives are better at risk assessment.
• Men are 30% more likely to obtain managerial roles.

The type of unconscious bias we need to address:

• Beauty Bias: Beauty bias is a social behavior where people believe that attractive people are more successful, competent, and qualified.
• Affinity Bias: Affinity bias, also known as similarity bias, is the tendency people have to connect with others who share similar interests, experiences, and backgrounds.
• Horns Effect: The horn’s effect is the tendency people have to view another person negatively after learning something unpleasant or negative about them.
• Attribution Bias: Attribution bias is a phenomenon where you try to make sense of or judge a person’s behavior based on prior observations and interactions you’ve had with that individual that makes up your perception of them.
• Conformity Bias: Conformity bias is the tendency people have to act similar to the people around them regardless of their own personal beliefs or idiosyncrasies — also known as peer pressure.
• Halo Effect: The halo effect is the tendency people have to place another person on a pedestal after learning something impressive about them.
• Contrast Effect: The contrast effect is when you compare two or more things that you have come into contact with — either simultaneously or one-after-another — causing you to exaggerate the performance of one in contrast to the other.
• Ageism: Ageism in the workplace is the tendency to have negative feelings about another person based on their age.
• Name Bias: Name bias is the tendency people have to judge and prefer people with certain types of names — typically names that are of Anglo origin.

Bias is everywhere. How can we overcome it?

1. Question your first impressions
2. Justify your decision
3. Ask for feedback
4. Create a culture of calling out unconscious bias.
5. Make others justify decisions
6. Make decisions collectively.

Let’s empower each other and call out unconscious bias whenever we come across it!