Unconscious biases influence our everyday interactions and perceptions.
We all use our upbringing, experiences, and values to filter daily interactions and to make sense of our surroundings and environment. This is normal human behavior. At times, the filter is at work consciously
Unconscious biases influence our everyday interactions and perceptions.
We all use our upbringing, experiences, and values to filter daily interactions and to make sense of our surroundings and environment. This is normal human behavior. At times, the filter is at work consciously, but the filter is also operating unconsciously. This is what we call unconscious bias.
Unconscious biases are learned stereotypes that are automatic, unintentional, deeply engrained, universal, and able to influence behavior.
While these can be perfectly normal and harmless (for example, picking Coke over Pepsi), if unchecked it can cause real problems, particularly in business.
- Do you tend to favor those whose names are more familiar to you?
- Do you prefer to hire people from your alma mater or Ivy League schools only?
- Would you screen George’s resume above Jorge’s resume if they had the same qualifications?
In the workplace, unconscious bias can affect hiring, promotions, evaluations, dismissals, customer service, sales, revenue, profits – and in the healthcare sector – even patient care and safety.
For example, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan found that traditionally White sounding names received 50% more callbacks for interviews than African-American sounding names.
If issues like this are not addressed, in