This document discusses unconscious bias and provides strategies to address it. It defines unconscious bias as prejudices that occur automatically from our backgrounds and experiences, and are unintentional. Examples of unconscious biases that can influence decisions include stereotyping based on gender, age, race, or other attributes. The document recommends recognizing unconscious biases exist, slowing down intuitive decision making, and implementing processes to make unbiased decisions easier and biased ones more difficult. The goal is to identify and address influences that could prevent fair and equitable treatment of individuals.

1. Unconscious bias
A brief introduction
Seán L. Stickle
VP & Chief Strategy Officer
Physician Assistant Education Association

3. What is unconscious bias?

4. * *

6. “I’m not biased.”
—Everyone

7. The reflex brain stereotypes,
even in people who consider
non-discrimination as one of
their main values and who
sincerely and consciously
practice this belief.
BrainChains, Theo Compernolle (2014)

9. behavior
vs
intention

13. systematic
irrationality

14. Unconscious Bias
A bias that we are unaware of, and
which happens outside of our control. It
is a bias that happens automatically and
is triggered by our brain making quick
judgments and assessments of people
and situations, influenced by our
background, cultural environment, and
personal experiences.
Unconscious Bias and Higher Education
Equality Challenge Unit (2013)

15. Implicit Bias
Refers to the same area, but questions
the level to which these biases are
unconscious especially as we are being
made increasingly aware of them. Once
we know that biases are not always
explicit, we are responsible for them.
Unconscious Bias and Higher Education
Equality Challenge Unit (2013)

17. Your heritage is being
vandalized every day by
theft losses of petrified
wood of 14 tons a year,
mostly a small piece at
a time.

18. First Rule of Bias Club
Talk About Bias

19. Perceiving one’s
judgments as
objective and free
of bias predicted
greater bias.
“Constructed Criteria: Redefining Merit to Justify Discrimination”
Uhlmann and Cohen, 2014

20. Second Rule of Bias Club
Prevent Bias

21. How is unconscious bias
relevant to PA admissions?

22. Exercise
Stereotyping

23. Steve is very shy and withdrawn,
invariably helpful, but with little
interest in people, or in the
world of reality.
A meek and tidy soul, he has a
need for order and structure,
and a passion for detail.

24. Steve is a…
librarian farmer

25. Janelle is 31 years old, single,
outspoken, and very bright. She
majored in philosophy. As a
student, she was deeply
concerned with issues of
discrimination and social justice,
and also participated in anti-
nuclear demonstrations.

26. bank teller bank teller &
active in the
feminist
movement
Janelle is a…

27. Exercise
Stereotyping

28. woxl
hyqp
kvbi
zbpd

29. sdty
glvp
xmlt
ztub
fbrm
txzp
bhwp

30. red
yellow
green
blue
red
blue
yellow

31. red
yellow
green
blue
red
blue
yellow

32. Implicit Association Test

34. Making biased decisions
affects the recruitment and
selection of staff and
students, and the ability of
those staff and students to
achieve their full potential.
Unconscious Bias and Higher Education
Equality Challenge Unit (2013)

35. Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science
Joan C. Williams, Katherine W. Phillips, Erika V. Hall (2014)

36. Men were favored for the traditionally
male job of police chief, and women
were favored for the traditionally female
job of women’s studies professor.
Decision makers didn’t stereotype the
applicants. Instead, they defined their
notion of ‘‘what it takes’’ to do the job
well in a manner tailored to the
idiosyncratic credentials of the person
they wanted to hire.
“Constructed Criteria: Redefining Merit to Justify Discrimination”
Uhlmann and Cohen, 2014

37. What purpose does
unconscious bias serve &
why do we have it?

39. 10,000,000 bits/sec
Retinal nerve
40 bits/sec
Conscious mind
"Neurophysiology of Sensory Systems”
Manfred Zimmermann (1986)

42. “Normally when you're
going from point A to
point B, you divide up the
world into things you can
use, and those are things
you see. Your perceptual
systems do that.”
Jordan Peterson, Professor, Psychology, University of Toronto

43. Exercise
Inattentional
Blindness

45. Exercise
Inattentional
Blindness

48. Schemas
Implicit and habitual ways
of organizing information
about how we experience
the world.

52. pareidolia

60. We do not see things
as they are, we see
them as we are.
—Anaïs Nin (1961)

62. What kinds of unconscious
bias are there?

65. System 1: Fast
fast, automatic, frequent,
emotional, stereotypic,
unconscious
System 2: Slow
slow, effortful, infrequent,
logical, calculating,
conscious

66. System 1: Fast
automatic, frequent,
emotional, stereotypic,
unconscious
System 2: Slow
slow, effortful, infrequent,
logical, calculating,
conscious

67. System 1: Fast
automatic, frequent,
emotional, stereotypic,
unconscious
System 2: Slow
effortful, infrequent,
logical, calculating,
conscious

69. Too Much
Information?

70. Too Much
Information?
Aggressively filter.

72. Not Enough
Meaning?

73. Not Enough
Meaning?
Fill in the gaps.

76. “If they win, it’s because they
made good decisions. If they lose,
it’s because they were unlucky.”

77. Need to
Act Fast?

78. Need to
Act Fast?
Jump to conclusions.

80. What to
Remember?

81. What to
Remember?
Just the important bits.

82. Implicit Association Test

83. What are the effects of
unconscious bias?

87. Ego Depletion/Decision Fatigue
When judges make repeated rulings,
they show an increased tendency to rule
in favor of the status quo. This tendency
can be overcome by taking a break to
eat a meal.
“Extraneous factors in judicial decisions”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011

90. What can I do about
unconscious bias as a
PA admissions team?

91. 1. Recognize
Understand that you (and
everyone else) has
unconscious biases

93. behavior
vs
intention

94. 2. Slow down
You move too fast

95. In designing bias-countering
processes and practices,
encourage those that place a
premium on cognitive effort
over intuition or gut instinct.
“Beyond Bias,” Strategy+Business
Heidi Grant Halvorson & David Rock (2015)

96. Individual cognitive effort is
not enough. You have to
cultivate an organization-
wide culture in which people
continually remind one
another that the brain’s
default setting is egocentric.
“Beyond Bias,” Strategy+Business
Heidi Grant Halvorson & David Rock (2015)

98. 3. Poka yoke (ポカヨケ)
Make the right thing easy
Make the wrong thing hard

102. Unconscious bias
A brief introduction
Seán L. Stickle
VP & Chief Strategy Officer
Physician Assistant Education Association

103. Unconscious bias
A brief introduction
Seán L. Stickle
VP & Chief Strategy Officer
Physician Assistant Education Association