Let’s Talk About Unconscious Bias

If you have been online at any point in the last five years, you are likely to have come upon an article or two… or twenty discussing unconscious bias! As workforce trends across sectors have exhibited, workplaces are increasingly representative of a wonderful assortment of diverse employees (Hur et al., 2017). Woohoo for progress!

This information in mind, the increased attention directed at addressing unconscious bias is not only beneficial but essential seamless organizational performance! So, what exactly is unconscious bias and why do we need to talk about it? From the standpoint of research in cognitive and behavioral sciences, unconscious bias is defined as implicit preferences an individual may have toward certain groups and classifications of people (Udyavar et al., 2020).

As discourse surrounding unconscious bias continues, there are a number of responses individuals present when engaged with the subject. In my discussions with friends and family, there is a common adage that issues of unconscious bias is an infrequent occurrence in diverse societies and workforces. Not too long ago, Fabiola Cineas (2020) published a piece that examined an attack authored by the Trump administration in the aim of impeding policies that allow diverse groups of people to flourish. Of these aims, derailing regulatory demands of unconscious training was intended in the guise of being unneeded.

While trends indicate increased diversity initiatives and workforce characterizations, it is important to recognize that unconscious bias exists in these environments as well. Examination of data in public service industries presented researchers with an assortment of information for analysis — subsequent analysis of such records relayed the conclusion that unconscious bias remained an issue among diverse workforces (Laurencin, 2020; Udyavar et al., 2020).

So, what does it all mean? In laymen terms, there is still progress to be gained in understanding that there is much growth left in the diverse initiatives we put forth. Even so, unconscious bias cannot be addressed until we are all ready to admit we may have an unconscious bias problem. Until then, you may see a couple more articles devoted to creating awareness on the issue!

References

Cineas, F. (2020, September 24). Critical race theory, and Trump’s war on it, explained. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2020/9/24/21451220/critical-race-theory-diversity-training-trump

Hur, H., Andalib, M. A., Maurer, J. A., Hawley, J. D., & Ghaffarzadegan, N. (2017). Recent trends in the U.S. behavioral and social sciences research (BSSR) workforce. PLOS ONE, 12(2), e0170887. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170887

Laurencin, C. T. (2020). Unconscious bias, racism, and trauma-informed policing: An address and message to the Connecticut racial profiling prohibition project advisory board. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 7(4), 590–591. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00794-8

Udyavar, N. R., Salim, A., Haider A. H. (2020). Clinician unconscious bias and its impact on trauma patients. In: Siegler M., Rogers Jr. S. (Eds.), Violence, trauma, and trauma surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31246-6_19