SAN DIEGO—Implicit or unconscious bias can be either a positive or a negative, but both forms can have harmful effects when it comes to company decision-making, said Jerrilyn Malana, Esq., chief deputy for employment and special advisor for the San Diego County District Attorney's Office, at the BMC Dialogue Series “Unconscious Bias in the Workplace” event. The conference was presented by the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego School of Business here Wednesday afternoon.

Malana said it's easy to miss something you're not looking for, explaining that unconscious bias is also referred to as “implicit bias”—a term that became mainstream during the 2016 presidential election. Implicit bias leads to shortcuts in thinking that one may or may not agree with, but that ultimately may result in unfair treatment of others. And this unfairness may actually be shortchanging the one with the bias as well as the one who is on the receiving end.

These attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions and decisions in an unconscious manner are activated involuntarily, without awareness or intentional control. We create schemas or mental shortcuts that help us organize and categorize information in an automatic process, but they contain many biases—and these biases are created over time, with the input of parents, friends, school and the media. Malana showed a recently created commercial that exposed people's bias about what it means to “run like a girl,” while showing that young girls don't have that bias—yet.

Malana pointed out that unconscious bias has been proven in many areas of society, including sports (when the race of the referee is different from the race of the payer, there's a higher incidence of foul calls), policing (shooter bias, although police officers are better than civilians at knowing when to shoot, thanks to training) and employment (Caucasian-sounding names are more likely to receive favor than, say, African-American-sounding names, and women are less likely to get hired by orchestras despite equal ability and talent).

When structural barriers are set up to prevent this kind of discrimination, it is lessened. For example, on the television show “The Voice,” during the blind auditions, the coaches can't see the contestants and must be persuaded only by the sound of their voice to turn around to show they want that contestant on their team. Without this structural barrier, they might have passed on Jordan Smith, an overweight, “geeky”-looking young man who went on to win the show (and is arguably one of the best talents the show has ever promoted).

Unconscious bias can prevent your business from reaching its full potential—or even succeeding—particularly since so many companies have been focusing on diversity and inclusion programs. Fortunately, just because you have implicit bias doesn't mean you need to act on it. While implicit bias is pervasive and related to explicit bias, it is a distinct mental construct that is malleable and can be corrected, said Malana. A few strategies you can employ to mitigate unconscious bias are:

change your mindset
diversify your circles
increase positive contact with groups with whom you hold stereotypical views
recognize risk factors for unconscious bias
slow down when making decisions about people
minimize distractions when making tough decisions
create concrete standards ahead of time
routinely check your decision-making process
seek feedback and monitor results

Instant Insights /

What You Don't Know About Bias Can Hurt You

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