Discriminatory behaviour.
What are protected characteristics?
It is against the law to discriminate against someone because of:
age
disability
gender reassignment
marriage and civil partnership
pregnancy and maternity
race
religion or belief
sex
sexual orientation
These are called protected characteristics.
Unconscious bias in the workplace
Recent research shows that unconscious bias is in play in every
aspect of the modern workplace — in recruitment, retention,
performance management, promotion, client relations, and the
allocation of work assignments.
How unconscious bias affects individuals in the workplace, and
strategies and tactics for overcoming this problem is the
responsibilities of senior leadership; In fact, raising awareness of
unconscious biases is now widely considered a new kind
of diversity training.
From a business perspective, unconscious bias is important in
terms of globalization and success in the global economy,
since businesses that understand the power of diversity will
benefit in terms of productivity and profitability.
Consequently, we need to be aware of unconscious bias as it has
a substantial and far-reaching impact on work environment and
culture, on interactions between employees, and on client
relationships. It can be an important hidden factor in whether:
The best candidate gets a job
The most suitable employee is given responsibility for an
important project
A performance review is aligned with salary and bonus
payments
Promotions are given based on merit or favoritism
Clients feel that they have received good service
What is unconscious bias?
Unconscious bias is identified by psychologists as part of everyone’s social identity. It has
two main components:
Our ability to use ‘schemas’ (categories or types) and intuition to reach very quick
decisions about people,
things and ideas even when faced with huge amounts of information (heuristic decision-
making)
Our tendency to respond positively to people we perceive to be like us (affinity
bias) and to react against
people perceived to be too different to ‘fit in’ or to pose a threat to us (negative bias). Such
bias can be the product of social stereotypes, family influence or experience (real, for
example having had one unpleasant encounter with someone, or perceived, for example
reacting to news reports which create positive or negative images of particular groups).
Research suggests that we all, without exception, have unconscious biases which may
influence our decision-making in favour of or against someone else or ourselves:
Decision making about others at work is both formal (recruitment and selection,
merit pay, providing development opportunities) and informal, when we may not
even be aware that we are making decisions that impact on others (networking
outcomes, mentoring style, on-the-hoof conversations).
Decision making at work about ourselves can take the form of stereotype threat –
which happens when a member of a group about which there is a stereotype
unconsciously conforms to that stereotype in the way they behave (e.g. when
women are reminded of the stereotype that women are less good at maths than
men, they perform less well in maths tests)
1. Becoming aware of biases
The first step is to become aware of your personal biases. Some you may already be able to
name, others may be buried more deeply. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) developed at
Harvard measures the hidden attitudes and beliefs that determine our
preferences for certain groups over others. It uses images flashed on screen
which participants match with a list of words, some carrying positive and
others negative associations, to test a wide range of possible biases, including
age, gender and race as well as biases, such as against short men, that do
not result in unlawful discrimination. The outcome measured is not the actual
association reached but the time taken to reach it. It is common, for example,
for participants to take longer to associate images of BME people with positive
rather than negative words than it takes them to similarly match images of
white people. The implication is that, in a situation like this, where we know
that our views are being tested, we are taking the time to use our conscious
mind to mitigate the impact of buried bias. So the IAT not only demonstrates
that we are biased, but that mindfulness (exercising our conscious mind ) can
help to mitigate bias.
1. Mitigating the impact of unconscious bias
Research suggests that, despite the complex nature of the problem,
mitigating the impact of unconscious bias is a relatively simple matter of
adherence to high quality policies and good practice coupled with raising
awareness, acting on that awareness and developing a more mindful
approach at key decision-making times.
Evidence from the higher education (e.g. Morley 2013, pp 3-4) and other
sectors (e.g. McKinsey 2010) suggests that compliance with excellent policy
and best employment practice is unlikely on its own to succeed in mitigating
the impact of unconscious bias: even in organisations with high-quality
policies and practices the under-representation of minorities and women
continues despite best efforts.
Validated experiments in this field include use of the IAT to look at the extent
to which bias can be reduced using an implementation intention. For
example, when three groups of volunteers were asked to associate various
‘hire and fire’ words with dark or light skin-toned faces (no other features
other than skin tone changed):
o the control group, given no further instructions, showed a
preference for hiring light-skinned people;
o the group given the goal intention ‘don’t be prejudiced’
demonstrated half the race bias of the control group;
o participants given the implementation intention ‘if I see a dark face,
then I’ll ignore colour’ demonstrated no
prejudice.
A further study used the IAT to look at the stereotype associating
management with maleness and produced similar outcomes. In this
case participants were re-tested after three weeks, when the positive
effects measured in the implementation intention group were still
active, suggesting that we can train ourselves to reform habits based
on bias. Other experiments have looked at attitudes to short men,
homeless people and football fans.
The report commissioned by the ECU (ECU 2013) contains more recommendations
for mitigating the impact of unconscious bias.
If someone thinks you have a characteristic and treats you less favourably,
that's direct discrimination by perception. ... Indirect discrimination occurs when
an organisation's practices, policies or procedures have the effect of disadvantaging
people who share certain protected characteristics.
References
Harvard Implicit Association Test: [Link]
Changing Faces: [Link]
Equality Challenge Unit (2013) Unconscious bias in higher education. London: ECU
Kandola, B. (2009) The value of difference: eliminating bias in organisations. Oxford: Pearn Kandola
Goldin, C. and Rouse, C. (2000) ‘Orchestrating impartiality: the impact of ‘blind’ auditions on female
musicians’, American Economic Review, Vol. 90, No. 4, pp. 715-741.
Wood, M., Hales, J., Purdon, S., Sejersen, T., Hayllar, O. (2009) A test for racial discrimination in
recruitment practice in British cities. London: National Centre for Social Research for the Department
of Work and Pensions Burgess, S. and Greaves, E. (2009) Test Scores, Subjective Assessment and
Stereotyping of Ethnic Minorities. University of Bristol
