Unconscious Bias Glossary
- Affinity bias
- a type of bias works according to the common human tendency „people who are like each other, like each other“. It i spart of human nature to be drawn towards people with similar looks, preferences, attitudes and values.
Dalton, Shamika and Villagran, Michelle (2018), “Minimizing and addressing implicit bias in the workplace“. In: C&RL News, pp. 478-485).
- Ageism
- Assumption
- Attitude
- refers to our opinions, beliefs, and feelings about aspects of our environment. We have attitudes toward the food we eat, people we meet, courses we take, and things we do. At work, two job attitudes have the greatest potential to influence how we behave: Job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
Principles of Management. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, p.77.
- Awareness
- means that you take the time and effort to understand yourself better so you can make informed decisions that will help you improve your life. It can also help you identify what you like about your job and how to build a successful career path that can keep you enthusiastic and satisfied in your work.
Indeed.com. 2021. What Is Self-Awareness: Tips on Being More Mindful at Work.
[online] Available at: [ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/what-is-self-awareness]
- Confirmation bias
- Confirmation bias is a bias which refers to the act of selectively expanding one’s beliefs with new knowledge that confirms the already held beliefs. This is seen e.g., when people have their news tailored to their interests which ends up neglecting to present them with information that challenges their views (Nickerson, R. S., “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises”, Review of General Psychology: 1998).
- Conservatism bias
- Conservatism bias is a bias which refers to the act of insufficient revision of one’s beliefs when presented with new evidence that shows a reality contrary to them, i.e., when one relies on pre-existing information instead of incorporating new information (Edwards, W., “Conservatism in Human Information Processing” in Judgment under Uncertainty (Ed.: Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky): 1968)
- Cultural Background
- a context of one’s life experience as shaped by membership in groups based on ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, exceptionalities, language, religion, sexual orientation, and geographical area. (IGI Global, 2021 https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/ipad/6367 ).
- Cultural Diversity in the workplace
- a Company hires a wide range of diverse individuals. Diversity is often misconceived as solely multicultural matters, however it also applies to diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexuality, language, educational, background, and so on.
- Cultural Stereotypes
- Generalizations become stereotypes when all members of a group are categorized as having the same characteristics. Stereotypes can be linked to any type of cultural membership, such as nationality, religion, gender, race, or age. Also, stereotypes may be positive or negative
- Cultural fit
- Cultural fit refers to a candidate or employee’s alignment with the organizational culture and processes in terms of beliefs, work expectations, and values.
- Culture
- there are numerous definitions of culture. One of the most popular one is by Alexander Thomas: Culture is seen as ”an orientation system defining our perception of normality”.
Thomas, A. (2010), “Culture and Cultural Standards”. In: A. Thomas et al., ed., Handbook of Intercultural Communication and Cooperation, 2nd ed., Göttingen: Vanderhoek & Rupprecht, p. 22.
- Discrimination
- the intended or accomplished differential treatment of persons or social groups for reasons of certain generalized traits. The targets of discrimination are often minorities, but they may also be majorities, as black people were under apartheid in South Africa. For the most part, discrimination results in some form of harm or disadvantage to the targeted persons or groups. An ever-growing number of terms have been coined to label forms of discrimination, such as racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, or cissexism (discrimination against transgender persons), classism (discrimination based on social class), lookism (discrimination based on physical appearance), and ableism (discrimination based on disability).
[online] Available at: [https://www.britannica.com/topic/discrimination-society]
- Diversity
- Epistemic injustice
- Epistemic injustice is the act of undervaluing a person’s knowledge status because of a trait of their identity, such as their race, gender or sexuality, in effect making the person appear less credible than he or she is (Fricker, M., Epistemic Injustice: Power and Ethics of Knowing: 2007).
- Equality
- Equality in the workplace
- Equality is fair treatment for people in every facet of life regardless of gender, race, disability, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or age. Equality doesn’t necessarily translate to equal treatment for all. It is promoting an individual’s right to be different. You can do it by making adjustments in the system to meet the needs of other people.
- Fast and slow thinking
- terms coined by Daniel Kahnemann.The author also refers to them as System 1 and System 2. The systems show two different ways in which the brain works. System 1 is fast, automatic, emotional, unconscious; System 2 is slow, exhausting, logical, conscious. Most every day decisions are taken by system 1, system 2 steps in whenever a decision requires specific attention. This division is very efficient, saving mental energy and optimizing performance. However it bears a risk as system 1 is subject to mental shortcuts and thus with a tendency to bias.
Kahnemann, David (2011) Thinking fast and slow, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Fuzzy culture
- defined by Jürgen Bolten describes a multiperspective observation of interaction between differently socialised persons. Bolten developed a model of intercultural action competence which considers the effective integrated interaction between personal, social, methodological and professional competence in an intercultural context.
- Gender bias
- any one of a variety of stereotypical beliefs about individuals on the basis of their sex, particularly as related to the differential treatment of females and males. These biases often are expressed linguistically, as in use of the phrase physicians and their wives (instead of physicians and their spouses, which avoids the implication that physicians must be male) or of the term he when people of both sexes are being discussed.
[online] Available at: [https://dictionary.apa.org/gender-bias]
- Halo effect
- can be defined as the tendency to use global evaluations to make judgments about specific traits. In other words, we use a global characteristic (such as attractive or likable) to determine specific personality traits (such as outgoing or kind). We attribute personality qualities to people we have only seen, even though we have never met them, and the qualities have nothing to do with their looks. This phenomenon happens unconsciously – we are unaware of the bias we develop simply because of a person’s attractiveness.
[online] Available at: [ https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-halo-effect-definition-advantages-disadvantages.html]
- Horn effect
- closely related to the halo effect, is a form of cognitive bias that causes one’s perception of another to be unduly influenced by a single negative trait. An example of the horn effect may be that an observer is more likely to assume a physically unattractive person is morally inferior to an attractive person, despite the lack of relationship between morality and physical appearance.
[online] Available at: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_effect#cite_note-study.com-3]
- Inclusive
- is an organisational effort and practices in which different groups or individuals having different backgrounds are culturally and socially accepted and welcomed, and equally treated.
Global Diversity Practice. n.d. What is Diversity & Inclusion?
[online] Available at: [ https://globaldiversitypractice.com/what-is-diversity-inclusion]
- Ingroup bias
- a tendency to favour one’s own group, its members, its characteristics, and its products, particularly in reference to other groups. The favouring of the ingroup tends to be more pronounced than the rejection of the outgroup, but both tendencies become more pronounced during periods of intergroup contact. At the regional, cultural, or national level, this bias is often termed ethnocentrism. Also called ingroup favouritism. (APA Dictionary of Psychology, https://dictionary.apa.org/ingroup-bias)
- Intercultural Competence
- is the ability to function effectively across cultures, to think and act appropriately, and to communicate and work with people from different cultural backgrounds – at home or abroad.
Leung, K., Ang, S. and Tan, M.L. (2014), ‘Intercultural Competence’, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behaviour, 1:4889-519.
- Marginalisation
- Marginalisation is the act of cutting someone off from opportunities available to others because of a preconception formed around their identity, leading to them being relegated to an unimportant or powerless position within a society (Peace, R., “Social Exclusion: A Concept in Need of Definition?”, Social Policy Journal of New Zealand: 2001).
- Microaggression
- Multiculturalism
- Oppression
- Perception
- an act or faculty of perceiving, or apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind, cognition, understanding, immediate or intuitive recognition or appreciation, as of moral, psychological, or aesthetic qualities, insight, intuition, discernment (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/perception)
- Perception bias
- a tendency to form stereotypes and assumptions about certain groups that makes it impossible to give an objective judgement about members of those groups.
Dalton, Shamika and Villagran, Michelle (2018), “Minimizing and addressing implicit bias in the workplace“. In: C&RL News, pp. 478-485).
- Preconceptions
- Preconceptions are beliefs that shape one’s attitude to a specific person or group of persons based on knowledge gained prior to having a direct experience of the person or group of persons. Preconceptions can both create overvaluing and undervaluing of others (Friedkin, N. E. & Cook, K. S., “Peer Group Influence”, Sociological Methods & Research: 1990).
- Prejudice
- Religion
- a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. (Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion)
- Social image
- Stereotype
- a fixed general image or set of characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a particular type of person or thing; a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows others to categorize them and treat them accordingly (Collins Dictionary – https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/stereotype)
- Unconscious bias
- an unconscious favouritism towards or prejudice against people of a particular ethnicity, gender, or social group that influences one’s actions or perceptions (Lexico Dictionary – https://www.lexico.com/definition/unconscious_bias ) ; a social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, and these biases stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing (Office of Diversity and Outreach, University of California – https://diversity.ucsf.edu/resources/unconscious-bias )
- Values
- are guiding principles that are most important to you about the way that you work. You use these deeply held principles to choose between right and wrong ways of working, and they help you make important decisions and career choices.
Mindtools.com. 2016. Understanding Workplace Values: ― Finding the Best Cultural Fit.
[online] Available at: [ https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/understanding-workplace-values.htm]
- Viewpoint
- Xenophobia