Understanding Your Unconscious Bias

Most of us like to think of ourselves as fair and open-minded, but we all make snap judgements, use stereotypes and, at times, make unfair assessments about other people.  We all have biases and many of these happen automatically, outside of our conscious awareness, in our unconscious.  Consider for a moment this well-known riddle:

A son and his father are involved in a horrific car accident and the father dies at the scene.  The son has serious injuries and is rushed to hospital.  When in the operating theatre the surgeon, on seeing the injured boy, says ‘I cannot operate, this is my son’.

How can this be?  The answer is at the end of this blog.  It’s useful to reflect on the answer that you gave and how quickly you made your judgement. 

Often, the results of unconscious bias are that we negatively stereotype a person without intending to do so.  Public attitudes and explicit behaviour have shifted in the UK over time with the role of women and the treatment of individuals from ethnic minority groups changing radically in the last fifty years.  Far fewer people are explicitly racist or sexist than was the case a couple of decades ago.  However, what has not changed are our implicit or unconscious biases; those biases that we have which are below the surface of our conscious awareness. 

So, why do we need to worry about bias and its impact, particularly in the world of work?  Looking at the facts is most helpful here.  In the UK, the Boards of our top 150 FTSE companies have 24% women and less than 2% from Black, Asian Minority Ethnic groups.   Within organisations, the culture of the organisation is primarily influenced by those in the most senior positions who act as powerful role models for others.  So, if most of our senior leaders are white males, it is the biases of these individuals which will shape core decisions, strategies and policies on how the organisation is run.  Bias can take many forms from ‘affinity’ bias, where we favour people ‘a bit like us’ or ‘halo’ bias, where we are impressed by a person because they are very good in one area.

Unconscious bias is important to understand in education as this will shape the next generation.  There is evidence of a pattern of behaviour in the UK at present, reported by the Institute of Physics, in which girls opt out of the ‘difficult’ subjects like Physics at ‘A’ level (with only 20% of girls taking Physics), despite doing better than boys in their GCSE Physics results.  In those schools where there are fewer girls studying Physics to ‘A’ level, the girls are to be found in the more traditional ‘female’ Arts subjects.  It is important for schools to consider the way that they, perhaps unconsciously, steer pupils of different genders in their subject choices.  A further example of the potential of unconscious bias is that as white, working-class boys get older they are now seen to be underachieving in some schools.  This may be down to several factors like the social inequalities in their lives ramping up; their own unconscious bias which sets low expectations as they do not see people like them doing well in the world; and, perhaps, their parents or their teachers self-fulfilling prophecies about their potential.  Biases can compound and make a problem seem intractable.  

     

It is not easy to address the issue of unconscious bias.  Indeed, there may be a reluctance for some individuals to talk about what is going on in their head as they might fear being viewed as a stereotype and so their thoughts are suppressed.  However, this is counter-productive as the key to addressing unconscious bias is to talk it through and applying sustained effort in understanding it on an on-going basis.   Each of us has a role to play in unravelling this issue and the best place to start is with ourselves.  It is important to know your own biases and to work with them.  The more that you know, the more you will be able to interrupt your automatic thinking processes and decide how you will work with it.  You can access the Implicit Association Test (IAT) run by Harvard University as part of Project Implicit to check your own implicit or unconscious bias against a range of different types of people: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

With your results, keep in mind that we are complex, and so be cautious about giving too much weight to any one test.  Instead, consider your behaviour in the world and how to raise your awareness of your biases so you are more consciously aware of your own behaviour and decision-making.  My previous blog, ‘Why the most effective way of deepening your self-awareness is to tune into your unconscious’, is a resource to help you understand your unconscious processing and how this impacts on your behaviour and your potential for bias. 

   

Margaret Walsh is a registered member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy, a Member of the Association of Coaching and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.  She works with individuals and groups using a mixture of coaching and psychotherapy to help deepen self-awareness from which to bring about change.  She works face-to-face as well as by Skype and telephone and can be contacted on margaretwalshcoach@gmail.com

The answer to the test is: the surgeon is the mother   

Source – Data on women and ethnic minority individuals on Boards – Spencer Stuart UK Board Index 2016

Why the most effective way of deepening your self-awareness is to tune into your unconscious

It may sound like a riddle to read that to deepen your self-awareness, you need to understand your thinking patterns that are, most likely, unknown to you.   Yet, the accepted wisdom in Neuroscience is that over 90% of our thoughts come from our unconscious mind.  What is going on in your unconscious mind matters if you are serious about developing your self-awareness.  However, the challenge here is knowing that it is easier to tune out the uncertainty of not knowing rather than face this idea that your thoughts, which often drive your behaviour, are outside your conscious awareness.   

As it’s important to know what we’re dealing with, I’ll start by providing an overview of what is meant by the unconscious mind.  It can be viewed as the place where most of the work of the mind gets done.   It is the store for automatic skills (e.g. breathing), the source of intuition and dreams, and an engine of information processing.  Fleeting perceptions may register in the unconscious mind (e.g. bias towards a gender or race) long before we are aware of them.  From a visual perspective, the mind could be viewed as an iceberg, with your conscious awareness above the water and most of the unconscious processing happening beneath the surface of the water (i.e. outside of your awareness).  

So how do you tap into your unconscious?  From my studies and work, I have identified the following six ideas as starting points to grow your understanding of your own unconscious:

1.       Be curious and open-minded about how you are in the world

Become aware of the latest research and literature about the unconscious by reviewing breakthroughs in the field of Neuroscience.  One of the ways that we learn to adapt in a changing world is through our self-awareness.  Also, become comfortable with ‘not knowing’ the answers; which is also very good training for living in the world where there are so many uncertainties impacting on our lives e.g. Brexit, climate change and artificial intelligence.  There are parallels here with our internal world; both have ambiguity that we need to navigate and problem-solve.  With our internal world, psychometrics, theories and frameworks like Myers Brigg Type Indicator are helpful ‘shorthand’ to gaining insight into ourselves, but be mindful of not being ‘boxed-in’.  We are all individuals.

2.       Every relationship or interaction has dynamics within and surrounding it

If you consider that everyone that you have contact with has an unconscious, which drives behaviours that are most likely outside of their awareness, and that these collide at times with your own unconscious, then you start to understand the scope for conflict and misunderstanding in many relationships.  It also starts to explain why we might surround ourselves with individuals who have similar beliefs and ideas as our own (‘our tribe’) who may look and sound like us.  This is often more comfortable and affirming even though we miss out hugely on the diversity of thinking and connection that comes from being with people who are different to us. 

Psychodynamic theory, which was first published over 100 years ago, and has an established body of research, teaches us that our early relationships, with our parents and siblings ‘imprint’ a pattern of behaviour that we can often repeat (frequently unconsciously) throughout our lives.  Transference is a powerful feeling for someone whose traits mirror those of a significant person from one’s past and can be either positive or negative.   It may be that certain types of people remind us of, say, one or both of our parents and bring out unconscious feelings like ‘anger’ or a ‘desire to please’, which we may not even notice.      

3.       Use reflection time

The pace of change in the 21^st century is fast and with demanding jobs, family responsibilities, the Internet and social media, it is possible to be busy all the time.  You can easily become so distracted that you disconnect from yourself and this can lead to a build-up of stress or anxiety.  Connection to self was a theme from an earlier blog of mine, and one of the ways to build this is through introspection and this is where reflection space comes in.  By reflecting on events that either went well or did not go well, you disentangle the part you had to play in them.  The Greek philosopher, Socrates, understood the importance of tuning into your inner world with his famous quote, ‘an unexamined life is not worth living’.  This idea contrasts with the prevailing norms which favour a more extrovert, socially connected ideal where an individual’s social media presence is often carefully cultivated and curated to present the best of their life. By giving yourself space to reflect you can think things through and process your learning and insight, or simply tune into what you are feeling.

It is no surprise that the growing interest in mindfulness, meditation and getting into nature are an antidote to the busyness of the mind.  Building in techniques that facilitate a tuning back into your emotions increases your potential to understand your unconscious.

4.       Notice the patterns that exist in your behaviour

Abraham Maslow (who published the seminal work on motivation contained within his ‘Hierarchy of Needs’) understood the importance of self-awareness and wrote ‘what is necessary to change a person is to change her awareness of herself’.   By taking time to be curious about your behaviour, and how you feel, and spending time reflecting on this, increases your insight and your tendency to behave in certain ways.

5.       Be aware of your contradictions

Psychotherapeutic theories, like Gestalt, believe that we are made up of parts, some of which conflict, and this is quite a helpful visual reference to hold in mind.  Working through your own contradictions is not easy, but for every strength you have, there is also the potential for this to be overdone e.g. confidence in your own ability could having lurking beneath the surface an arrogance or insecurity.  Left unchecked, this could mean that every challenge or different perspective is seen negatively and a negative pattern emerges of, for example, a leader choosing only those people who agree with him, to work alongside him, and freezing out those who disagree.

6.    Work with a coach/counsellor, with rigorous, psychological or psychotherapeutic training and who is a member of a professional body with a clearly stated code of ethics

The coaching business has grown hugely in recent years and anyone can set themselves up as a coach, or indeed a counsellor, (if they operate outside of a professional body) with very little training and start working with you on exploring your inner world.  Coaching tools and techniques have their place in building the skill-set of individuals to manage problems like time management and delegation.  However, where issues are deep-seated and more psychological, to avoid these re-emerging, it pays to work at depth on them.    

When working at a deeper level, invest time and attention in choosing a coach or counsellor who has had rigorous training to understand their own unconscious mind before being let loose on yours!  As mentioned under point 2 of this blog, there are dynamics in every relationship, including coaching and counselling ones and it is often helpful to work with these as part of the coaching or counselling relationship as they potentially contain insights into understanding your unconscious.  A well-trained coach or counsellor can help you navigate through the uncertainty of not knowing and start to facilitate your process for understanding your patterns of thinking and behaviour that emerge from your unconscious. 

  

Margaret Walsh is a registered member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy, a Member of the Association of Coaching and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.  She works with individuals and groups using a mixture of coaching and psychotherapy to help deepen self-awareness from which to bring about change.  She works face-to-face as well as by Skype and telephone and can be contacted on margaretwalshcoach@gmail.com