How we can challenge unconscious bias

We all carry unconscious bias. We make a thousand small judgements every day to help us sort through our lives quickly. We evolved to group things together, to look for patterns in everything, because it saved us time, and it could save our lives. Bias has sprung from this hardwired way of thinking. We look for patterns in people, we group them together, and we place judgement on them.

All of this can happen in less than a second, a lot of the time you won’t be even be conscious of the millions of quick judgements you’re making every day.

In the TED talk above, Kristen Pressner was more surprised than anyone to discover her own unconscious bias. Pressner is the Global Head of Human Resources at a multinational firm, and what’s more is a fierce advocate for women in the work place – how could she be sexist? When two of her employees separately came to her and asked about their pay she later realised she responded in two completely different ways. To the male employee, she didn’t bat an eye, but to her female employee she questioned her. Unpacking this, Pressner looked at the way she unconsciously perceived the roles of men and women, and how she projected that bias on to these two people.

In April 2019, the matter of unconscious bias became an international talking point when a Starbucks manager called the police on two black men who were just waiting for a friend at the store. Starbucks had to issue an apology for the intense over reaction of the manager, and closed more than 8,000 of its US stores for “racial bias” training.

"We look for patterns in people, we group them together, and we place judgement on them."

Daniel A. Yudkin and Jay Van Bavel, a graduate student and an associate professor in the psychology department at New York University respectively, argue that people shouldn’t get so defensive when accused of unconscious bias. “Implicit bias is grounded in a basic human tendency to divide the social world into groups,” they write. “In other words, what may appear as an example of tacit racism may actually be a manifestation of a broader propensity to think in terms of ‘us versus them’ — a prejudice that can apply, say, to fans of a different sports team… implicit bias is not about bigotry per se.”

This doesn’t make it any less damaging, they say.

“Research has found that unconscious bias can heavily influence recruitment and selection decisions,” says the UK Equality Challenge Unit (ECU).

ECU points to a study of science faculties in higher education institutions which asked its staff to review several applications for positions in the faculty. The applications were identical, except for the gender of the applicant. The study found that these faculties were more likely to hire male candidates over female candidates, to say the male candidates were better qualified, to give the male candidate a higher starting salary, and to be more willing to invest in the development of the male candidate over the female candidate.

This is reflected in the number of female CEOs heading up Fortune 500 companies – just 24 out of 500. And the gender pay gap – in the UK, more than three out of four companies pay their female staff less than their male staff, and in nine out of 17 economic sectors men earn 10 percent more than women.

The LGBT+ community has its own pay gap as well. A 2014 studycommissioned by World Bank and IZA World of Laborfound gay men earned on average 9 percent less than their straight male counterparts, while gay women earned 12 percent more than straight women, they still did not earn as much as straight men.

There shouldn’t be any logical reason for this disparity. Studies have shown businesses actually benefit from diversity. According to McKinsey's ‘Delivering Through Diversity’ report, "Gender, ethnic, and cultural diversity, particularly within executive teams, continue to be correlated to financial performance across multiple countries worldwide."

The report found that companies with the most ethnically diverse executive teams are 33% more profitable. While a Catalyst study found that companies with more women in executive positions have a 34% higher return to shareholders.

Unconscious bias can account for a lot of the reasons why these groups are held back. Deena Fidas, director of the workplace equality programme at the Human Rights Campaign, explains that unconscious bias can lead to an uncomfortable atmosphere between LGBT+ workers and their colleagues and employers.

In HRC’s 2014 study about workplace inclusion, “The Cost of the Closet”, four out of five straight people said that they don’t want their LGBT+ colleagues to have to hide who they are in the workplace, but more than half of those straight people have said they would feel uncomfortable hearing those LGBT+ colleagues talk about dating.

That study found that more than half of LGBT+ workers in the US stayed in the closet, and the main reason they gave for doing so was because they didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Unconscious bias often dictates who is promoted, who is invited to networking events, and who (in employers’ minds) deserves to be paid more. This reflexive, implicit bias is having real-world effects on millions of people.

“We all grow up with homophobia,” says Selisse Berry, founder and chief executive of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, “so you carry that around with you.” But that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. Berry insists workplaces can change attitudes by adopting policies that make it wrong to discriminate against members of the LGBT communities and teaching employees about the nature of unconscious bias.

“So much of it is education.”

Yudkin and Bavel agree,“Implicit bias can be overcome with rational deliberation.”

"Unconscious bias often dictates who is promoted, who is invited to networking events, and who (in employers’ minds) deserves to be paid more."

Unconscious bias training has started to become a staple in the workplace. They work by unpacking the quick judgements we make every day and replacing them with new habits that challenge our biases with logic and reason. It isn’t an easy process, and is by no means a total solution, but it’s a start.

“Acknowledging the truth about ourselves — that we see and think about the world through the lens of group affiliations — is the first step to making things better,” Yudkin and Bavel write.

Iris Bohnet, a professor and author at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has some tips for you to get started:

In recruitment

1. Use “screens” — hide information on résumés that allows bias to drive poor hiring decisions

2. Compare two or more candidates against each other rather than measure them against your own ideas

3. Ask candidates the same questions in the same order during the interview

4. Give candidates job-related tasks to complete as part of the selection process

In the workplace

1. Collect data so you can diagnose problems and measure progress

2. Use goals and participate in rankings to motivate staff to compete towards equality

3. Remove barriers by presenting information in a simple, salient and comparative way

4. Evaluate your current diversity training schemes — do not assume they are working

There are technologies you can use as well to combat unconscious bias. When writing up job descriptions trying using Textio, an augmented writing software that lets you predict how people will react to what you’ve written. Certain words and phrases can isolate different people, or send unconscious coded messages about the type of person that is desired for a job. You can make sure anyone feels comfortable applying for your job, no matter their gender, race, or sexual orientation.

Blendoor is another helpful tool. It minimises unconscious bias by hiding data from job applicants that isn’t relevant, and highlighting what data is. The software takes data from your existing job boards and tracking systems and then displays the information without names, photos, or dates. The website also collects EEO demographic data for talent pipeline analytics based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and more, so you can track where bias is happening in your company.