By Chantel Schirmer
What is implicit bias? Do we have one and what do we do with it?
Photo by Arvin Mogheyse on Unsplash
While I am not one who is very political I took the Politics Implicit Association Test and was surprised how the function of an IAT seems to play with your mind (Harvard, 2024). The repetition of “bad words” with a category of either political party over and over again can create a pattern of belief in your mind. It seemed to mess with my mind and its neutral ideas to provide the implicit bias through the amount of time it took me to select one over the other. While there wasn’t a massive difference, there was a slight difference. The slight difference is what I need to be mindful of ad give me information to allow me to be aware and take action.
In How to Think about ‘Implicit Bias’ says it best when they state, “This tendency for stereotype-confirming thoughts to pass spontaneously through our minds is what psychologists call implicit bias (Payne et al., 2018).” More than that “It means your brain is noticing patterns and making generalizations (Payne et al., 2018).” That is exactly what my experience with taking at IAT was. I noticed patterns via the test and also in the amount of time it took me to respond.
Implicit bias can significantly impact the reliability and validity of selection processes in various contexts, including hiring, promotions, and performance evaluations. These biases, often unrecognized by decision-makers, can lead to decisions that favor certain groups over others based on characteristics such as race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and even political status. For example, if an interviewer has an implicit preference for candidates of a particular background, they may unconsciously give them higher ratings regardless of objective qualifications, just as seen in the IAT when a good word or bad word was associated with a certain political party. One effective strategy to counteract implicit bias in selection processes is to implement structured interviews with standardized evaluation criteria (Bohnet).
References:
Bohnet, I. (2016, July 18). How to take the bias out of interviews. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/04/how-to-take-the-bias-out-of-interviews
Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Steinmetz, C. (2013). The Perfect Hire. Scientific American Mind, 24 (3), 42-47
Harvard. (2024, November 3). Projectimplicit. Take a Test. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1
Payne, K., Niemi, L., & Doris, J. M. (2018, March 27). How to think about “implicit bias.” Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-think-about-implicit-bias/
Swift, M. (n.d.). W5 Lecture 2 – Introduction to Selection. HRM. MGMT 453×400
Swift, M. (n.d.). W5 Lecture 3 – Choosing Selection Methods. HRM. MGMT 453×400
Swift, M. (n.d.). W5 Lecture 4 – Improving Interview Effectiveness. HRM. MGMT 453×400
Swift, M. (n.d.). W5 Lecture 5 – The Selection Decision. HRM. MGMT 453×400
