What is Bias?
Examples of Bias
Assuming that…
- People of a certain race are intelligent or unintelligent.
- People with more education or financial security are hardworking and people with less education or financial security are lazy.
- Younger people have more ability than older people.
- Men are more committed to their careers than women.
Bias is prejudice in favor of or against a thing, a person, or a group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. Bias is based on our positive or negative associations with someone’s or something’s characteristics.
We rely on our assumptions and past associations to make sense of new experiences. However, our assumptions about others may be inaccurate.
When Bias Becomes a Problem
Bias can lead to discrimination, which is the act of treating people differently based on their personal characteristics such as their age, race, or gender. Discrimination can mean denying someone the opportunity for a job, education, or housing. But it also can be more subtle, such as disregarding someone’s opinion or avoiding interactions with someone based on their personal characteristics.
Because it influences behavior, bias can lead to stakeholders feeling unwelcome and discourage them from sharing valuable insights.
How Can Research Teams Overcome Bias?
Organizers and team members can take four important steps to reduce the effects of bias:
Become Aware
Get to Know the Person
Replace Exclusive Behaviors
Contribute to Inclusion
Become Aware of Bias.
Most people are unaware of their bias. Becoming aware of personal bias and making changes to behavior can feel uncomfortable. However, recognizing your biases and the ways those biases affect interactions with people who are different is the first step in creating an inclusive team environment. Recognize when you are most likely to make incorrect assumptions about others. This is more likely to occur when:
- Information about other people is incomplete.
- People have a lot to think about all at once.
- There are time constraints.
- People are overconfident about their objectivity.
Get to Know the Person.
- Focus on the individual stakeholder or team member, not the group that person represents.
- Make a point of forming relationships with team members and stakeholders with backgrounds that differ from yours.
- Keep an open mind about each person on the team.
- Find things that you have in common with others on the team.
- Seek information that helps you challenge your own biases.
Replace Behaviors that Exclude Others.
Below are examples of how small actions or behaviors can include rather than exclude others.
| Exclusive Behavior |
Inclusive Behavior |
|---|
- Not greeting someone or including them in a conversation.
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- Making a point to greet someone and include that person in the conversation.
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- Not acknowledging someone’s comment or contribution.
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- Paraphrasing or repeating someone’s comment and verbalizing the value of their contribution to the project.
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- Interrupting someone who is speaking.
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- Allowing someone to finish their thought completely before responding.
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- Minimizing or dismissing someone’s observation or opinion.
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- Acknowledging the person’s idea or opinion and communicating how it is being considered.
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- Focusing your attention only on those you know well.
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- Intentionally seeking out others who you do not yet know.
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- Expressing criticism to others of someone’s work or ideas.
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- Asking someone about their process or approach to the work.
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- Making jokes about someone’s personal characteristics.
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- Finding opportunities to show respect to someone for their individuality.
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Contribute to an Inclusive Culture.
Research teams and individuals can take a variety of actions to promote inclusion, including the following:
- Have team members make a formal commitment to be inclusive of others and take steps to make it happen.
- Create social opportunities for teams, such as a dinner for team members to get to know each other outside of the study.
- Use ice breakers at the start of meetings for people to share something about themselves.
- Hold a team discussion on implicit bias and the potential effects it can have on the team; invite the team to brainstorm potential biases that it might face.
- Encourage team members to take the Implicit Association Test (IAT):
- The IAT measures biases that people hold and is available for free.
- Team members can take this test on their own (and they do not need to share their results with anyone).
- Taking the IAT can help team members become aware of their own unconscious biases.