Unconscious Bias Training: 5 Reasons Why It is Important

Unconscious bias training aims to improve consciousness of the psychological shortcuts that lead to quick judgments about people's skills or character, frequently based on race and ethnicity. Its mission is to eliminate prejudice in workplace attitudes and behaviors, from recruiting and promotion choices to encounters with customers and coworkers.

A predisposition either for or against somebody or a group is called bias. It's not always a terrible thing to have biases. When prejudice positively or negatively impacts someone, it generates an unfair advantage or disadvantage. Conscious or unconscious bias training is among the positive measures that businesses can take to assist employees at all levels detect, understand, and overcome unconscious biases. This can contribute to negative decision-making and undermine DEI activities and goals.

How does unconscious bias in the workplace affect people?

Unconscious prejudice in the workforce has been proven to affect all of us repeatedly.

• Implicit gender bias in the workplace

According to a study published in the European Journal of Finance in 2016, highly qualified financial planners with rich celebrity clients gave biased advice because they assumed – on an unconscious level – that female entrepreneurs were less aware of investments. They had less authority over their investment accounts than men. This was true independent of the advisor's gender.

This astounding bias against high-net-worth persons by individuals of their gender highlights one of the great realities of unconscious bias: we all have it, whether we realize it or not, because it's a fundamental human feature shaped by our environment.

• Unconscious age bias

When we judge someone entirely based on their age, this is known as age prejudice. Being young, for example, is frequently linked with a lack of experience or judgment. On the other hand, being older is associated with being outdated or behind the times.

• Unconscious confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is an unconscious prejudice that occurs when people believe something they already believe. The propensity to seek out and understand different information in a manner that supports what you already think is known as confirmation bias. Confirmation bias may be destructive not just to others, but it could also impair your decision-making at work.

• Unconscious affinity bias

We are drawn to similar people, whether in terms of look, background, or views. According to 2020 research, hiring managers prefer applicants who are similar to them, which leads men to choose males since they perceive men to be more "capable" than women. Professional relationships can be influenced by these prejudices as well. Affinity bias is the term for this. This can have a detrimental influence on a company's performance, a team's success, and a person's leadership talents.

• The horn effect

The halo effect and the horn effect are quite similar. However, the horn effect begins with a negative evaluation rather than a positive one. As a result, we judge the person's other characteristics adversely.

Researchers have uncovered more than 150 forms of unconscious prejudice, including the biases described above. This demonstrates that humans can have inclinations or preconceptions for any attribute that sets them apart from others. Bias for or against a person's dialect, relationship or parental status, political opinions, geographic heritage, educational status, senior status, personality type (like extrovert vs. introvert), and communication method are all examples of frequent prejudices.

Why is unconscious bias training needed?

According to research, unconscious biases are how the human brain absorbs and categorizes huge volumes of information. According to studies such as those conducted by social cognition expert Gordon Moskowitz, our brains employ prejudice to pursue our objectives covertly.

Unconscious biases, on the other hand, if left unchecked, can result in unfair or discriminating conduct with harmful repercussions. As part of a multifaceted strategy to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), unconscious bias training may help people understand, control, and minimize their prejudices, resulting in a more respected, safe, and diverse workplace.

Any workplace decision, particularly hiring, recruitment, promotions, performance appraisal, and discipline, can be influenced by unconscious prejudice. Interactions with persons outside the business, including consumers, suppliers, collaborators, and community representatives, might be influenced by unconscious prejudice. Unconscious bias knowledge and comprehension is a never-ending process. Unconscious Bias training is primarily intended to accomplish three goals:

1. To make individuals aware of their prejudices, frequently with the use of a diagnostic tool like the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT)
2. To provide tools and approaches to help people modify their habitual thought patterns
3. To reduce prejudice by changing your behavior. 

Some of the most effective approaches to limit the danger of implicit bias are to monitor hiring practices and promotion criteria and include a dynamic workforce to chime in on crucial decisions. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, training aids in raising awareness of unconscious prejudice. Participants in the training discover that even if they do not intentionally embrace a term or stereotyping, it may impact their thoughts and behaviors without their knowledge.

To overcome the effect of unconscious prejudice, it is necessary to raise awareness. People are more inclined to take measures to slow things down their decision-making processes if they are aware of their hidden biases. This permits them to make judgments using their more rational brain rather than their gut feeling, which may be swayed.

What are effective instructional design principles for unconscious bias training?

Learners develop a set of routines that assist old biases in diminishing and cultivating new, positive ideas and attitudes. Stereotype replacement, perspective-taking, daring talks, micro-affirmations, and goal-setting are some of the actions included in these exercises. Companies should keep a few important items in mind while adopting unconscious bias training.

To begin with, training should not be used to "preach" to personnel. This should not be primarily criticizing and punishing workers; rather, it should create dialogues and allow people to address their prejudices.

Furthermore, training should not indicate that individuals are racists, sexists, or have other prejudices on purpose. By their very nature, these prejudices are unconscious and unintended.

Finally, training should emphasize that anybody can be a victim and a perpetrator of bias. Biases are formed depending on various factors other than one's protected features. Employees may be subjected to bias based on other factors like height, size, and look, regardless of safeguarded attributes such as race, ethnicity, handicap, or age. It's critical to educate employees on the many types of biases they could have and how to overcome them.

Staff training should also provide concrete activities that employees may do to make their workplaces more diverse. Minimizing labels and broad generalizations, challenging automatic assumptions, and establishing basic rules for discussions to ensure that all opinions are heard are among these steps.

The first phase in helping workers realize and counteract their unconscious biases is to educate them on these practices.

The bottom line

One of the pillars of teaching employees and management important DEI concerns is frequently providing unconscious bias training. Effective training should develop an awareness of unconscious biases and what participants can do to combat them via inclusive thoughts and behaviors. A long-term, top-down paradigm shift must be supported by anything from manner and terminology to management systems, policies, and protocols for organization-wide transformation. To achieve this, businesses must innovate and deploy a wide range of strategies, tactics, and tools, such as those mentioned above.