If you’re a white woman looking through resumes for a potential new hire, you almost certainly don’t intend to favor candidates who have names you associate with white people. But at work it can show up in subtler, damaging ways. Implicit biases are frequently shaped by a need for the familiar however, before we know it, our unconscious may decide what’s "safe" or "acceptable." This split-second decision-making can be helpful in a dangerous situation. The quick perceptive shortcuts people make daily, like telling friends and strangers apart, require some form of bias. Where does bias come from?īias itself isn’t always negative-it’s a useful survival mechanism that helps us filter information based on what’s important to us.
Tackling unconscious bias is an ongoing part of this work, and it starts internally. Many organizations are working hard to root out discrimination at all levels. Though they’re not in our conscious minds, these biases still affect how we interact with colleagues, shaping our organizational culture. Implicit bias shows up in deep-down prejudices and stereotypical assumptions we don’t know we hold.
Everyone has some form of implicit or unconscious bias we absorb received notions about race, class, gender, ability, ethnicity, and sexuality from a very young age.
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