Unconscious and Confirmation bias refers to the biases we all have but in which we might not consider ourselves in direct control of.

What can create this biases? Your background, personal experiences, societal stereotypes and cultural context will all have bearing on your beliefs, decisions and actions often without you even considering them.

We all get a dose of confirmation bias when we find ourselves in disagreement with others, often initially refusing to accept something that may well be a fact to ensure our position on whatever argument is occurring remains intact.

Often bias and arrogance will come hand in hand. As you become a more rounded and open minded individual you will find yourself becoming less arrogant, however the subconscious bias can often still remain.

So how are these biases triggered? Often, they happen automatically, our brain will make a snap judgement and asses a situation or person based on our own experiences and backgrounds. A person might be drawn to someone with a similar educational background as themselves, but might often avoid contact with those they deem less educated – this is usually done subconsciously and not done in a malicious way.

Often we are not fully aware of our own views and opinions, thus we will not understand their implications.

The impact unconscious bias can have on individuals and companies is huge, and it can affect people in a variety of ways.

Often unconscious bias in the workplace can affect recruitment and retention decisions such as hiring someone we feel a more personal connection with – this sort of bias can also be exploited with rogue tradesmen often befriending older more vulnerable people and playing upon this subconscious bias to gain money.

A really common example of this at home is recognition of your partner, often we overlook them and their own efforts in life much to the detriment of our relationships, but we will often be quick to praise others to our partners.

There is a substantial body of work now written on the subject of unconscious bias, and in the workplace it can lead to poor performance of overlooked or less favoured workers. Not controlling your biases can have a dramatic effect on your outward appearance, your successes and failures and can lead to poor outcomes on a personal and professional level.

Unconscious bias will damage your reputation.

How do we overcome this, and mitigate any damage it may cause?

You need to develop an awareness of your own unconscious biases, this means you should over a period of time scrutinise your own thinking and thought process to discover how you come to certain conclusions, you will be able to identify which conclusions are brought about by personal experience and often these personal experiences are exactly that, personal to you, someone else’s experiences may differ from yours, therefor your biases can and will be wrong.

Just the same is confirmation bias, this is easy to identify, if you ever disagree with someone and hear their words but don’t actually listen and process the information you are given then you are most certainly suffering from confirmation bias – recognise this for what it is, and move swiftly on.

Some general rules to avoid your own personal biases in decision making would be things like:

  • Don’t rush a decision – take stock of situations whenever possible, snap judgements can be useful in high pressure situations but often these snap judgements will be based on your own cognitive bias.
  • Justify your decisions using evidence – this is really important in a professional environment if you will be held accountable later on.
  • Keep an open mind about the people you meet – the more diverse your friendships the less likely you are to allow decisions to be influenced by personal discriminations.
  • Focus on the positive behaviours people demonstrate, try to avoid assuming stereotypes.
  • Be mindful, respective and even curious of other people’s differences and opinions – open your mind to new ideas.
  • Focus on changing your own behaviours, not other people.

Don’t let your mind control, control it.