A Guide To Unconscious Bias And How To Overcome It When Making Decisions
Have you ever noticed how we often recruit people like us? Or how we feel comfortable with people with similar backgrounds? This is called affinity bias, and it’s one of many biases that can unconsciously influence our decisions and client interactions.
Speed Read
- Our judgements of people are influenced by all sorts of assumptions, and we’re often not aware of them
- Implicit or unconscious biases becomes a problem in the workplace when subtle biases and stereotypes associated with different demographic groups lead us to overlook or unintentionally exclude some people
- Becoming aware of these biases and making the unconscious conscious is the first and most important step when it comes to addressing the issue
- The reality is it’s hard to control our automatic or default judgements. That’s why decision-making experts suggest we move from the individual to the collective, from the decision maker to the decision-making process to ensure decisions are fair and objective
Imagine you’re interviewing candidates for a job opening. You invite the candidate in to a meeting room, and reception brings in a hot cup of coffee for each of you. Hugging that hot cup in your hands, you dive into your questions. The candidate responds well and they appear comfortable and open – you think they would be the perfect fit.
It’s a simple act – sitting down at an interview with a hot cup of coffee. But that caffeine boost may have a complex impact. In an experiment conducted at the University of Colorado Boulder, researchers found participants who briefly held a cup of hot coffee judged a person as having a “warmer” personality than those who held an iced coffee. The researchers concluded that holding warm objects makes one feel more comfortable and open around others.
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