50 Ways to Hack Your (Unconscious) Bias

June 18, 2021

Plus: 7 short videos to watch…

Maybe you are familiar with this situation: you (woman) are in a meeting with your customer and you brought a colleague (man). A technical question pops up and suddenly all eyes move to your colleague … awkward feeling? Has this happened to you before while you could have answered the question perfectly? We all live with bias, or even more so - we can’t live without it. But in order to not let stereotypes influence our decisions all the time (e.g. at work) we’ve made a summary of a report from Lean In about traps you might - unconsciously - fall into!

What is bias?

On wikipedia it’s described as: “Bias is a disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. (...). People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, or a belief. In science and engineering, a bias is a systematic error. (...)”. 

In short: it’s a mechanism of our minds that helps us react fast, but might lead us to make wrong decisions. 

Awareness matters

“Research shows that bias contributes to women being passed over for jobs and promotions. Almost three out of four women experience bias at work, and those who do are more likely to leave their jobs.” (LeanIn)  Considering that we are working in the highly competitive tech market, we cannot afford this to happen. Our goal should be to develop all the talents we have in the best possible way. And therefore, it’s important to start first by being AWARE in order to be able to DO something about the bias we all have.

Let’s sharpen our awareness!

7 most common forms of bias:

1 / Unconscious bias

Humans live with and thanks to unconscious bias. It’s helpful to let us react fast in new situations where we automatically refer unconsciously to what we have learned before and therefore are able to react quickly. They work as shortcuts. But they are based on stereotypes, which is a form of very simplified, and essentialist belief about a specific group. And therefore, will not be correct in all cases. Applying stereotypes to colleagues or employees will eventually lead to wrong decisions when it comes to spotting talent or choosing the next employee to follow a high potential program.

Watch video of LeanIn.org to learn more

2 / Performance bias

Performance bias refers to the fact that someone believes that certain people are better in certain tasks than others. This belief is based on stereotypes. E.g. Men can repair things better, women are more emotional, men are better in science and women are better in languages. Additional to this: the people in more powerful dominant groups (in the TECH world = men) are being judged on their potential, while those in less dominant groups (in the TECH world = women) are judged on their accomplishments. Which explains why women often have (rightfully) the feeling they need to be better and out-perform their colleagues to get equal opportunities.

See your potential and watch the video of LeanIn.org to learn more

3 / Attribution bias

More often we attribute our accomplishments to our skill and personality, and our failures to external factors (so we are not to blame…). However, this turns around when we look at others. When they do something successfully, we consider them “lucky”. On the other hand when they make a mistake, we’re more likely to attribute it to inferior capabilities. When we look at an employee or a candidate's performance, it can happen that we look too much at their mistakes, minimizing their accomplishments, and potentially miss out on a talented candidate or employee for a certain project or job. 
Watch LeanIn.org about attribution bias

4 / Likeability bias

We expect men to be assertive, so when they take the lead, it feels okay to us. People expect women to be attentive, warm and helpful. But when they speak up, are decisive and self-confident we just might like them just a little bit less. Or we call them mean, cruel or think they have “the wrong” attitude. The likeability bias plays a role when women negotiate about a contract or salary and might be the reason why someone chooses another (male) candidate. 

Video from LeanIn.org about likeability

5/ Maternal bias

When we assume that a woman after giving birth is less committed to her job and less competent, we call this maternal bias. As a result of this stereotype, mothers are sometimes given fewer promotion opportunities than fathers. When one day men would take the role of caring father, we might call it “parental bias”. But that won’t be soon; at the moment only 7.7% of Belgian men take parental leave compared to 37% of the female population.

Discover Maternal bias (LeanIn.org)

6/ Affinity bias

If you have an affinity with someone, you feel that you are similar to this person. You think that you know and understand them better. If you have an affinity with each other, you are most likely similar in some ways (white, male, senior, …). The affinity bias makes us tend to gravitate towards those candidates or employees that are more similar to ourselves. And we might - unconsciously - avoid people who are different from us.

Check out the video & learn more

7/ Double discrimination & intersectionality

Bias can work double and join with other stereotypes. Next to gender related bias, there’s a lot more: cultural based bias, sexual orientation bias or other aspects which can triple the effects. Imagine what could happen to people in your team who have the great quality of being different but just don’t feel recognized?

Discover the value of being different

If you are triggered by the 50 Ways to Hack Your (Unconscious) Bias, you can learn even more about it with this full digital program on how to hack your own bias! 

LeanIn.org helps women achieve their ambitions and works to create a more equal world. The organization is founded by Sheryl Sandberg (COO Facebook).