1 UNCONSCIOUS BIAS What is it?
2 Unconscious Bias: What is it? How does it work? By: David B. Hunt, J.D. President and CEO, Cri8cal Measures
Awareness: New Research Regarding Bias 3 In the past, bias was regarded as aberrant, conscious and inten1onal. Today, we understand that bias is norma1ve, unconscious and largely uninten1onal. Social Cogni1on Theory establishes that mental categories and personal experiences become hard-wired into cogni1ve func1oning. As a result, human biases can be seen as evolu1onarily adap1ve but socially maladap1ve behaviors.
4 What is it? UNCONSCIOUS BIAS:
What is Unconscious Bias? 5 Unconscious bias refers to a bias that we are unaware of, and which happens outside of our control. It is a bias that happens automa1cally and is triggered by our brain making quick judgments and assessments of people and situa1ons, influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences. These mental associa2ons happen without awareness, without inten2on and without control.
Unconscious Bias Starts With the Biology of the Brain 6 The problem? Too much informa1on for our brains to process. Scien1sts es1mate that we are exposed to as many as 11 million pieces of informa1on at any one 1me, but our brains can only func1onally deal with about 40. The solu2on? Mental short-cuts. The brain seeks to conserve energy. Decision-making, ambiguity, novelty and problem solving all take heavy cogni1ve reserve. We ve evolved to have mental short cuts that save 1me and usually yield reliable results. However, these mental short cuts are the basis of biases and stereotypes about diverse others.
Outsmarting Our Brains to Overcome Unconscious Bias 7
The Sociological Basis for Unconscious Bias 8 Experiments by Henri Tajfel showed that, as soon as people are divided into groups even on trivial or random bases strong biases resulted. Subjects perceived members of their group as more similar to them and members of other groups as more different and acted on those differences. In-group members failures were aqributed to situa1onal factors while out-group failures were aqributed to innate characteris1cs. Subjects maximized monetary rewards to in-group members and minimized monetary rewards to out-group members.
9 What Ac2vates our Biases?
What Activates our Biases? 10 Our biases are most likely to be ac2vated by four key condi2ons: 1 2 3 4 Stress Time constraints Mul1-tasking Need for closure or decision-making Do you experience any of these factors in your job?
Would you like to take a free test to explore your own, personal, unconscious biases? 11 Take the Implicit Associa1on Test Here
Key (Implicit Association Test) IAT Findings - Race 12 Race: White par1cipants consistently show a preference for White over Black on the IAT a substan1al majority of White IAT respondents (75% to 80%) show an automa1c preference for White over Black. People of Color also have unconscious racial biases. Most Asian and Hispanic Americans tend to show a strong unconscious preference for Whites over members of their own race/ethnicity. African Americans show the most dis1nc1ve unconscious racial preferences. 50% of African Americans show a strong unconscious preference for Blacks while 50% show a strong unconscious racial bias or preference towards Whites. 75%-80% White respondents showed a preference for White over Black
In Summary 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 Implicit biases are pervasive. People are oden unaware of their implicit biases. Implicit biases predict behavior. People differ in levels of implicit bias. There is no truth to the idea that younger people are any less biased than their parents. Educa1onal aqainment makes no difference with respect to implicit biases. People cannot be educated out of their biases The next edi1on in our series of e-books covers the implica1ons of unconscious bias for the healthcare workforce and pa1ent care.
14 Video Remote Interpre2ng (VRI) from InDemand Interpre2ng Instantly Connect to Experienced Medical Interpreters 24/7, 365 days a year, in over 200 languages. InDemand provides instant access to high-quality Video Remote Interpre1ng (VRI) for limited English proficient (LEP) and Deaf pa1ents at the touch of a buqon. Just select the pa1ent s preferred Language, and within seconds a medically trained interpreter will be online to assist. www.indemandinterpre1ng.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR David B. Hunt, J.D. CRITICAL MEASURES President and CEO David Hunt is the President and Chief Execu1ve Officer of Cri1cal Measures. Cri1cal Measures is a management training and consul1ng firm that assists employers to harness the power of diversity to create more produc1ve, profitable and inclusive workforces. 15 Over 1me, David has developed substan1al exper1se on diversity-related maqers in law, business and medicine: HealthCare: Two thirds of Cri1cal Measures work is in the area of cross-cultural healthcare. David is a sought-ader na1onal and interna1onal speaker on issues of racial and ethnic dispari1es in health care, the law of language access and medical dispari1es that result from globally mobile popula1ons. He has delivered keynote presenta1ons on such topics as The New Science of Unconscious Bias for the American Hospital Associa1on and American Medical Associa1on and The Law of Language Access for the American Bar Associa1on. Together with physician partners from Harvard and the University of Minnesota Medical School, David has created some of the na1on's first e-learning programs on cross-cultural medicine. Over 175,000 providers have now been trained on these programs. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Associa1on of America selected Cri1cal Measures as its primary vendor for services related to cultural competence in healthcare. In 2015, the AHA's Ins1tute for Diversity Management in Health Care selected Mr. Hunt as the na1onal consultant to its #123forEquity campaign to eliminate racial and ethnic dispari1es in healthcare. Prior to working in the diversity field, David worked as an aqorney, specializing in employment and civil rights law. A writer, speaker and current events commentator, David has appeared on the McNeill-Lehrer News Hour and published numerous ar1cles. He received his B.A. from Carleton College and his J.D. from the William Mitchell College of Law.
BeSer Communica1ons, BeSer Outcomes 16