For my implicit attitude test I chose to take one on Race (White – Black), as I felt this would be the most interesting and thought provoking test to see the results of potential implicit bias as I am caucasian. The test results were pretty interesting as I find myself to be very progressive so seeing that I ended up being faster at sorting African Americans with “Bad” than I was at sorting European Americans with “Bad” surprised me and honestly didn’t make me feel that great. I suppose this is why they are called implicit biases, as I don’t feel that these would affect me in the case that I was overseeing a selection process. However, I wonder if these could subconsciously impact my decision making without me being really aware of it. In this scenario, I suppose I definitely can see how implicit bias could impact the reliability or validity of a selection process. One idea to counteract this would be to have a diverse panel of various employees from the recruiting company hosting the selection process so it helps to improve the fairness and makes it so one persons bias doesn’t decide if someone isn’t hired. Another thought would be to incorporate blind reviews or evaluations of potential candidates so it makes it more based on their merit and experience and doesn’t introduce opportunity for biases based on demographics. Overall, just understanding implicit biases do exist and being aware of them is the first step in starting to counteract them. If we just push them off to the side then we are doing a disservice and not working to make it more fair for everyone in the work force and in society as a whole.
