May 10

May 10 On Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias is an insidious force in society because, by its very nature, we don’t really know that we have these biases or how it impacts our actions and judgements. Why do we judge people based on the qualities about the individual that they don’t even have control over, like their age, sexual preference, or country of origin? The results of unconscious bias are things that range from subtle, like worse customer service, to overt, like the gender pay gap or the shooting bias – i.e., the tendency of police to shoot black men. In this post I explore a number of biases through my own stories and give some tips on how we can get better with our own unconscious biases.

Recently the local branch of a global coffee shop conglomerate that had been closed for business due to COVID-19 re-opened for pick-up orders only. I ordered ahead and went to pick up an order for my family. When I got there, the barista acknowledged and helped 5 middle-aged men before acknowledging me, despite the fact that I was the one standing first in line in the designated waiting area, my order was the only one ready (and getting cold), and that I had spent the most money on a large order.

With British genes, I am usually happy to dutifully cue. But delivering cold breakfast and coffees for no good reason other than clearly I just wasn’t the right gender or age for this barista felt really stupid. (Interestingly, she was approximately the same gender and age as me).

Should I have said something? It’s just coffee, right? Or maybe there is something larger at play.

Unconscious Bias

We tend to use mental shortcuts to process information coming at us to quickly form judgements or make decisions and get through our day. These shortcuts can lead to mistakes – i.e., biases. Sometimes – indeed, most of the time – these biases can be unconscious and unknown to the biased individual.

And when these biases impact how we see people, we call it stereotypes. When seeing the term unconscious bias in popular literature, it is often directed at biases and prejudices against other people. Often this means that we are faced with prejudices about demographic qualities about ourselves that we cannot change – like where we were born, our age, sexual preference, or a disability.

There are a number of known unconscious biases. Here are few:

The Affinity Bias: when you prefer people who are like you or similar to you in some way

The Beauty Bias: making assumptions about someone’s personality or efforts based on their appearance

Confirmation Bias: we accept information that conforms with our prior beliefs and discard or discredit counter information

Gender Bias: preference for one gender over another

Here are a few examples:

Caucasian job applicants are found to be 74% more likely to have success than people from ethnic minorities even if they submitted the exact same CV.
For every $1.00 earned by male workers in Canada, female workers make $0.74. This is known as the Gender Wage Gap. This is the aggregation of societal bias.
Hiring someone for ‘culture fit’ because they are more like the rest of the team.
Assuming an older person is bad with technology.

I suspect my barista buddy in the story was suffering from cognitive fatigue, which led to her falling back on her own prejudices and stereotypes. It was the first day the café was open during a global pandemic. It was around 7 in the morning. Middle-aged men just kept popping up. She was triaging the flow of people, and I looked the least likely to give her a hard time. Or something like that.

But what if it was a situation where I had more money on the table? Let’s take another example from my personal life. Transatlantic flights.

For many, many years during my PhD, I would fly between Toronto and London, sometimes as often as twice a month. This is a huge expense, and I was a good patron of a particular airline to which I held the second-highest available traveler status. Let’s call it GOLD. I would notice how differently I was treated compared to the other Gold patrons, who were typically middle-aged men. I would be turned away from using priority check-in, people were just less friendly to me, and all the other Gold patrons got to board the plane first and grab that all-important overhead baggage space when I was made to wait with everyone else.

Being curious, I thought perhaps it was because of how I was dressing. I often opted for comfortable athleisure clothes, so perhaps I didn’t look rich enough to have achieved Gold status, or that I wouldn’t be continuously handing over money to the airline. So I changed my attire to see if this changed how the airport staff treated me and came dressed in business casual. Mixed reviews – sometimes they were neutral, most of the time I was just made to wait. I added my title “Dr” to my profile – which appears directly on my boarding pass to see if that made a difference. Infuriatingly, they often still just called me “Miss”. I tell ya, tens of thousands of dollars later, I still felt worthless and humiliated.

What’s going on here? As this was a fairly routine event for the airport staff, I highly doubt this was the same issue with cognitive fatigue as before.

It was likely gender bias and ageism. I didn’t look like the other Gold patrons, perhaps I was less likely to remain a status-level flyer, perhaps I was less likely to benefit their corporation. Maybe a little bit of confirmation bias, too. People who look like me don’t generally have Gold status, so they rejected information that suggested I was different from what they were used to by literally turning me away.

So I waited longer to get on my flights, so what? Probably not the biggest deal. But what if it was about your job?

I was in the process of being interviewed for one of my first big jobs. Things went well and they made me an offer that I accepted. After the process finished, I asked for feedback on how I had performed in the interviews. The HR person told me that I could have pressed them more for salary and bragged that they gave me a very low offer because ‘PhDs are starving and will accept anything’. This person told me that they know PhD have been so beat down that we have no confidence to negotiate. And they exploited that.

This is likely confirmation bias. The recruiter had had experiences with other PhD applicants before, and likely rejected information about what made me different from the others. Being in a position of power, he exploited it to save the company money.

But I had the job, right?

What happens when unconscious bias goes from subtle instances to overt instances?

What if you are an African American man out for a jog and you are murdered without reason simply because of racism?

I understand that I am part of privileged groups in society. This is known as social privilege, which is an unearned advantage or entitlement based on social group membership – like social class, gender or race. I also recognize that some of the demographic groups I identify with have some overt biases against them as well. This is known as oppression. But I think we can all agree that having prejudice against someone is obviously bad, and prejudices against someone for qualities that are fundamental to them and cannot be changed is extremely dangerous.

Diversity is incredibly valuable. Diversity can boost productivity, can widen perspectives, and can enrich life experiences. Diversity is dope.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Just like with my own stories, I really didn’t know what to do in the moment. Perhaps I still don’t. Should I have said something? Subtle impacts of unconscious bias are just plain uncomfortable to bring up. Why is that? Probably because acts laden with unconscious bias are ‘invisible’, they can be explained away by other factors, or maybe you are questioning what you saw. Someone might not realize they are doing it and perhaps kicking up a fuss about a taboo subject is worse than just leaving it alone. Or perhaps you are worried that if this person already has a bias against you, this will just make it far worse for you in the future.

I hear you. Finally, after years of what is essentially discrimination at the airport, I got to the gate and asked the gate agent to explain my experiences with the airline. I asked him why all the other Gold patrons got to have early boarding except me, why was I turned away from the priority security line, and why was I treated so differently? He said that it was likely just a one-off mistake, no big deal. I told him this happens every time I come to the airport. He didn’t apologize, but said that it probably was just a mistake and we are all getting on the plane eventually anyway.

I’m not sure speaking up did anything. But here are some other techniques we should be aware of.

Understand the groups you belong to. It really helped me to understand these biases. Now I know it’s systematic and not about me, Dr. D. I find it ironically comforting that someone just like me in my position would have likely been treated the same.
Advocate for education. Let’s make unconscious bias more conscious. Many people have the best of intentions and simply don’t realize what’s going on.
Check yourself. I would wager that every one of us has fallen prey to a bias at some point. Find opportunities to stop and think about decisions and judgements to make sure they are fair and appropriate.
Give yourself a break. I know you have a good heart. And unless you are shooting innocent African American runners, you probably didn’t mean to have a bias or prejudice. It’s okay! We’ve all been there. But getting bogged down in shame and guilt isn’t going to make a difference. Use these realizations instead as a way to learn.
Speak up if you see something. Now that you know about unconscious bias, I would recommend going to official channels if you see something that’s not cool. This might mean reporting inappropriate behaviour (even if you can’t say for sure that it’s biased) to HR at work, or management at a store, or customer service at an airline.

We can do this team,

Love,