Eight Ways to Reduce Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias, also known as implicit bias, refers to attitudes and stereotypes that we unconsciously attribute to another person or group of people.

These biases ultimately affect how we understand and engage with that person or group.

Here are eight ways to reduce bias:

1. Awareness and Acceptance. It is part of being human to have unconscious biases. Simply being aware of the different biases will help you start to reduce how these play out in your interactions with others. Awareness brings the bias from the unconscious mind into the conscious mind.

2. Develop self-awareness. Monitor your first impressions and reactions to people. Challenge your judgments and prejudices.

3. Slow down! Remember, unconscious bias is more likely to happen when we make snap decisions.

4. Widen your social circle – this allows you to learn more about others and build your cultural competence. Focus on the similarities shared with others, while also appreciating and actively seeking to understand differences.

5. Practise curiosity. Learn about the world around you and the different people in it. Ask people about their background, their life experiences, and so on.

6. Remove bias from decision-making. Where you can remove bias from decision-making. For example, during the hiring process in the workplace

7. Speak up if you notice bias in your workplace.

8. Be accountable. If you get it wrong – apologise and be accountable for your actions. We can only deal with bias if we are honest about it.