Unconscious biases are cognitive biases that exist in our subconscious. They can be both positive and negative, influencing the vast majority of our decisions by affecting our behavior.
If these biases aren’t recognized and avoided, they could lead to decisions that are bad for individuals and the company. Here are some of the most common types:
Gender bias
This occurs when certain traits (for example, assertiveness or confidence) are seen as negative in one gender and positive in another. A negative gender bias usually leans to the side of women, which can cause female employees to feel less appreciated and less engaged.
This bias can lead to female workers not wanting to share their ideas and can be incredibly frustrating and demotivating.
The horn 😈 / halo 😇 effect
The horn/halo effect is one of the most common examples of unconscious bias. It occurs when someone’s performance or character is generalized based on just one trait or a single event that occurred in their career.
If the trait or event is positive, it’s called the halo effect, resulting in the employee being perceived in a positive manner. If the trait or event is negative, it’s called the horn effect, and the employee is perceived with a negatively skewed lens.
This can adversely affect an organization by presenting only skewed feedback (positive or negative) for some employees, rather than objective assessments.
Name bias
This unconscious bias example comes into play most often when choosing people to interview, but can arise at any point in an employee’s experience with their employer.
Sometimes despite best intentions, managers can be biased when reading names they consider “foreign,” and as a result choose to hire applicants with more traditionally Western or European-sounding names over more unique names.
This can inhibit growth in workforce diversity and exclude many qualified applicants from being interviewed.
Similarity bias 👷♂️👷♂️👷♂️
The similarity bias essentially states that we like working with people who are similar to us. This could be graduates from specific schools, people who have worked at certain companies, or people with similar career trajectories or backgrounds as us.
Organizations that are influenced by the similarity bias run the risk of having no diversity within their teams.
As a result, there is the same lack of diversity in the ideas and perspectives of team members, which could lead to consistently less-than-ideal problem-solving by the team.
🖐 Right-hand bias
This is a less common example of unconscious bias but still does exist. It refers to aspects of the workplace being designed specifically for right-handed people.
A well-known example of this was when YouTube first launched the video-upload feature for their app, and 5-10% of videos were uploaded upside down. The company had failed to take into account that left-handed people would hold their phones differently than right-handed people.
This bias can make life more difficult for some people, and should be something management considers when implementing accessibility features in the workplace.
Confirmation bias
Another example of a prevalent unconscious bias, both within the workplace and outside of it, is confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias occurs when we make a decision about something, then actively look for information that supports that decision, while overlooking any opposing facts and viewpoints. As a result, we only consume information that reinforces our decision, rather than trying to understand all sides and coming to a well-informed decision as a team.
This can be detrimental to a company in several ways, as critical information about an issue can go disregarded by team members.
Age bias
Age bias most often occurs when assigning tasks to people based on their age. A common example would be a tech-heavy project. Unconscious bias may cause a manager to assume that a younger person would be more apt to handle this job, as opposed to an older one, simply because they are younger.
In this case, the manager is assuming experience or proficiency based entirely on a stereotype. Their judgement is not backed up by concrete facts, making it a perfect example of unconscious bias. After all, many older people are technologically savvy, so it would be unfair to assume they wouldn’t be right for the job.
How to avoid unconscious biases
Because unconscious biases exist in our subconscious, they are very hard to stop completely. However, steps can be taken to reduce the impact of these biases on the decisions we make.
🚧 Learn to recognize the common examples of unconscious bias.
- Ensuring everyone knows unconscious bias exists is the first step to avoiding it. This could be through meetings, awareness training, etc.
🚧 Assess which biases are most likely to affect you, and your company.
- Knowing which biases are most likely to influence you will allow you to take proactive steps to help reduce their impact on your decision-making.
- Knowing which biases may affect the company gives you the opportunity to consider them when making important decisions when hiring, promoting, giving raises, etc.
🚧 Remove the biases from your hiring process.
- This could include the wording of the job posting (avoiding gender-specific language, for example), blindly judging candidates (not looking at name or gender—base it on merit alone), or even giving candidates a sample assignment to see what their work may look like.
- Structure your interviews to guarantee a consistent and fair interview for everyone.
🚧 Diversify your management.
- If the senior employees are all of similar demographics, their unconscious biases will affect their decisions. Having diversity will ensure a wide array of viewpoints and help avoid biases when it comes to hiring and promoting people.
🚧 Hold employees accountable.
- This doesn’t necessarily mean you should punish employees if they make a decision based on unconscious bias, but the decisions should be monitored and watched for patterns. If data reveals a bias, someone will have to intervene.
- Encourage employees to speak up if they observe a bias.
Final thoughts
There are many examples of unconscious bias prevalent in the workplace. If they aren’t addressed, they can be detrimental to a company.
Ames is an Equal Opportunity Employer. To access the EEO Policy, please visit the Ames Employee Documents website.