According to Glenda, unconscious bias describes the associations that people hold which, although they are outside their conscious knowledge, they usually have a big influence on people’s behaviors and attitudes. Many times, people believe themselves to be open-minded and fair but the truth is that every person has a certain degree of unconscious bias which causes them to respond to different people in either positive or negative ways. The author says that these associations are not easy to override even if people recognize them to be negative and they are so far engrained in to people’s thoughts and even emotions.
The study shows that every person possesses a world view that is biased because all people are limited to a single perspective of life that makes them only see what is in front of them, what surrounds them, and they can only be able to read things that are before them. Every person has a certain subjective definition of reality and social locations go a long way in informing the view of the world. People’s biases stem from aspects such as race, gender, class, religion, culture, and sexual orientation, among others (Glenda, 2016). Our view of these aspects influences how we respond and react to every person and every situation in our lives.
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To better understand the reality of the concept, one first has to understand the term bias. Bias is a form of prejudice against or in favor of a certain person, group, or a thing compared with another in a manner that is usually considered as unfair. Biases are usually held by either individuals, or institutions, or groups and many times they have positive or negative impacts. Unconscious bias occurs when the brain makes very quick assessments and judgments of situations or even people without being completely aware of it (Glenda, 2016). Biases are normally influenced by people’s backgrounds, experiences, or cultures and many times people are unaware of these opinions and they never realize their full consequences and impacts.
Glenda argues that biases normally occur because of the way the human being brain categorizes other people for efficient decision making and expedience. When individuals start to interact with a large amount of information about each other, this becomes cognitively exhausting and they simply cannot take in everything about the new person that they meet. Because of this, information regarding other people becomes compressed and it is placed in categories that are easy to comprehend. This causes people to make rush judgments about other people and situations without taking the time to process all the details. This is commonly known as social categorization. Social categorization can be advantageous because it allows individuals to save effort and time when trying to process information about new people and thus they are able to pay attention to other things within their limited processing capacity. However, this categorization also brings about stereotypes and biases that can be very damaging when people are categorized as being out of the circle.
Unconscious bias in the workplace
One area that is really impacted by unconscious bias is the employment sector. Many Employers and human resource managers make biased decisions that mainly affect the selection and recruitment of staff and their ability to attain their full potential in the work place. Many times, managers or Human Resource managers tend to select and recruit staff according to their unconscious biases. For example, men and women may present their documents with the same qualifications and the same experiences but at times the male candidates will be selected over the women merely because the managers have unconscious biases that men are stronger and more responsible than women (Glenda, 2016). Such biases rid the women employment opportunities and also rid the organization a chance to explore talents and potential for creativity and innovation. There are many researches that have been conducted to come up with ways that biases can be reduced in the work place and ensure that equality is fostered among employees and the staff.
Glenda (2016) states that having policies regarding equality and diversity merely written down is insufficient and that these policies need to be implemented and put in to practice. He argues that an organization that is committed to diversity and equality is different from an organization that is demonstrating these values by practicing them. Glenda (2016) further states that if managers clearly demonstrate that they are totally committed to equality by showcasing acts such as attending equality events, discussing and debating this issue, and being accountable for lack of equality, then it is likely that the rest of the staff will follow suit. In order for an organization to avoid incidences of unconscious biases and ensure equality, the following measures are recommended.
Ways to curb unconscious bias
First, top executives should ensure transparency in all their exercises. They should create a transparency policy in regards to short-listing and interviewing processes ensuring that information about these activities is documented in a manner that shows why the people were selected, shortlisted and hired. There should documentation explaining why the selected candidates are better suited for the position as compared to other candidates. The leaders should also look at the language that is used in explaining these decisions to ensure that the decisions were valid and not based on subjective opinions such as the candidate’s ability to fit in the system since such opinions may be as a result of loyalty as compared to equality. The organization should also consider doing an audit for previous recruitment practices to make sure that the correct process was used (Glenda, 2016).
Secondly, the leadership of an organization should also consider candidate short-listing to be anonymized. Applicants should be asked to refrain from putting their name or any other information except from their qualifications so as to avoid any type of bias or stereotype when looking through the application forms. The leaders should also ensure that job advertisement is fair and transparent to ensure that every person has an equal chance of applying for the job as long as they have all the requirements needed for the position (Glenda 2016). The management should also ensure that there is a standard application form to ensure that every person is submitting the same type of information appearing in the same order to avail a fair chance of comparison. As stated above, management should ensure that all application forms do not contain personal information such as the name of the applicant, name of school, and anything else that may be irrelevant to the process so as to avoid any type of bias.
Thirdly, organizations and institutions should engage in activities and conducts that reduce stereotypes. Managers and leaders should create an atmosphere which promotes images that counter stereotyping of underrepresented or minority groups. If people in an organization are always presented with a certain group of people in certain roles then this creates a certain stereotype that will influence how those people are viewed in the organization. For example if an organization always employs people from minority communities to do odd and menial jobs such as janitors and cleaners, then it becomes hard for other employees to accept people from these communities when they are placed in positions of managers or directors. Also titles like CEO should not be specifically meant for men the same way that the title secretary should not specifically be meant for females (Glenda, 2016).
Additionally, organizations should ensure good practices. This means that leaders should ensure that there is diversity of guest speakers who come to speak in seminars or training, or even conferences. Data about the guest speakers should be collected before any event to ensure that there is a balance between them in terms of gender, race, color, and even religion. The organization should also consider conducting an image audit where images within the rooms, paintings on the walls, conference rooms, and even the board room are not only made up of a certain group of people. In cases where there are images of previous founders or predecessors, the management should consider auditing them to see what visitors or even the staff may be interpreting from them (Glenda, 2016). However, it is also important to present a true image of the organization and so a balance is needed. It would be wrong for an organization to look diverse in its outward look and prospectus while in the real sense it is not. This may make the staff and even visitors to feel misled and confused. Furthermore, leaders should consider organizing seminars and events all through the annual year that would promote diversity and equality and also reduce stereotypes about certain groups of people. For example, an organization may decide to offer special treats or join the staff in celebrating important historical events such as Black history month, mother’s day, International Women’s day and highlight the importance of these events to the employees. The organization should make these people feel appreciated and accepted by recognizing events that are important to them.
Lastly, to reduce stereotypes and to create equality in an organization, top leadership may opt for staff training in regards to unconscious bias and equality. Normally, it is very difficult to alert people about their biases and asking them to reduce or stop them. Many people tend to keep away from the people that are biased against them and therefore they become defensive. Many people also do not like being confronted about their biases as this normally creates tension and defensiveness (Glenda 2016). Therefore, it is important that instead of confronting the staff about their biases, they could be trained about them. The organization can think about introducing some form of training in an environment that is not threatening to them and give these people a chance to think and recognize their biases in a manner that is calm and constructive. This is a very important exercise especially for people who are concerned with undertaking activities such as recruitment, selecting, and hiring of staff.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as seen above from this peer reviewed article, unconscious bias is a phenomenon that is very common to every individual and it is highly likely that many people are unaware of these biases because they are engrained in their cultures, backgrounds and even experiences. However these biased have many consequences most of which are negative and harmful to organizations at large. It is therefore important for organizations to look for ways and means to deal with these unconscious biases to ensure that their organizations do not keep away potential candidates who are creative and innovative and to also ensure that they do not prevent people from attaining their full potential because of stereotypes and biases.
Reference
May, G. (2016). Beyond Bias. Managing Unconscious Bias in the Workplace. International Journal of Psychology , 51 , 436.
