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CHAPTER 2 You're Not Racist, but You Have Blind Spots
Did you know that babies have bias? Several studies show that babies as young as three months exhibit bias. Researchers have found that six- to eight-month-old infants are more inclined to learn information from an adult of his or her own race than from an adult of a different race. Babies of any age gaze longer and are more likely to follow visual cues of people of the same race. And babies associate positive music with people of the same race and sad music with people of different races.
How is this possible? How can babies be prejudiced? Where and how do they learn something so destructive at such a young age? The answer is that they don't learn it. And they're not prejudiced. They're biased.
Bias does not mean prejudice. Bias means preference. The Collins English Dictionary definition of bias is this: “Bias is a tendency to prefer one person or thing to another, and to favor that person or thing.” Babies who are just 90 days old cannot possibly be prejudiced, but they can show preference toward own-race faces over other-race faces. When it comes to learning (which is pretty much all that babies do, besides eating and sleeping), studies show that infants are more inclined to learn information from an adult of his or her own race than from an adult of a different race, especially when it comes to learning under uncertainty.
This observation is important to know and understand because it means that bias is in us. We are born with it. All of us. It does not mean we are born prejudiced; it just means that we have an innate, inherent preference for people who are like us. This probably isn't that shocking when you think about how the human species has survived all these years. We gravitated to, and stayed with, tribes and communities of people who looked like us because that meant safety and protection. Our very survival depended on it. With babies, their first visual contact of other people is usually their parents who are of the same race as they are, and because they form a preference for their parents (and what they look like), they feel safety, trust, or protection when looking at someone who looks like they do.
One of the things I found most fascinating about the various “babies and bias” studies is that babies are not negatively biased toward other races; they are simply positively biased toward their own race. In other words, they show preference for their own-race faces. That's exactly what bias is—preference, not necessarily prejudice.
No one wants to think of themselves as biased, but if you're going to make progress on race and diversity at work, you have to realize that most people, probably including you, have racial preferences, or unconscious bias. Your natural reaction to this may understandably be an immediate, emphatic, and indignant rebuttal: “I'm not biased! I am the least prejudiced person in this company! My brother is gay, and my sister's husband is Black, and my best friend is from another country!!!” and so on. Why do people have such a strong reaction to the word bias? Because many people believe that if someone is biased, they hate “others.” However, bias does not equal hate, despite what some people think.
Many companies put tremendous focus, time, and resources into diversity, equity, and inclusion training. That training almost always begins with discussions about unconscious bias, the unconscious beliefs and stereotypes we all have about various social or identity groups of people. Our brains attempt to categorize and organize the social world around us and the result is unconscious bias. It's normal. But the word bias is so loaded and perceived to be so negative that people fight it tooth and nail. They mistakenly equate it with racist, sexist, or other negative -ist words. No one wants to think of themselves in such awful ways, nor do they want anyone else to think of them that way, especially at work. Our careers, reputations, and livelihoods depend on us being well regarded at work. We feel accused when the word bias comes up, and we become very, very defensive. If we are going to have effective conversations about race at work, we have to get past our defensive reactions to the word bias and understand that our biases create problems in business. Our biases can turn into blind spots.
WHY BIAS MATTERS IN BUSINESS
Right now, especially if you're White, you may be thinking, “OK, if bias just means preference, not hate or prejudice, why is it such a big deal in business? Our company doesn't discriminate against anyone.” It's a legitimate question. Businesses are not focused on overcoming bias because of a “Kumbaya/We Are the World” mindset. I'm betting that your company, your team, and you, yourself, truly believe in, support, and value diverse perspectives, and that's terrific. But despite that, you can still have blind spots that come from your biases, and those blind spots will hinder your success and progress as an organization. Blind spots can be tricky because you don't even know they're there. In business, they can be deadly. They can lead to poor morale, employee defection, lost customers, lower sales and profits, lack of innovation, and poor decision-making. And worst of all: You won't know about the negative impact of your blind spots until after something has happened. That should send chills down your spine!
Let me give you an example that will illustrate why business bias can be harmful to your organization's performance. Let's say an executive on your team is White and must hire someone for an open position. The White executive interviews two candidates who are equally qualified; one is White, and one is Black. The executive hires the White person. The hiring executive doesn't think, “I didn't hire that other person because she is Black,” but rather, “I hired this person because I like her better—and the person I like better just happens to be White.” That thought is, of course, happening at an unconscious level, which is why, in business, this is referred to as unconscious bias or implicit bias. Unconscious bias can lead to hiring more people who are just like all your other team members. It can lead to hiring the wrong person, simply because you “prefer” them, or to promoting someone who is not ready for a higher-level position.
Another potential harmful effect of unconscious bias in business is that we are more likely to side with people we prefer or like in disagreements or in decision-making. So our biases have repercussions in terms of whom we tend to favor or agree with. Again, all of this is happening at an unconscious level. We aren't aware of it when it's happening.
JUSTIFYING YOUR DECISIONS AND ACTIONS
Our brains like logic. They like it when we make sensible, logical decisions. They like it so much that they rationalize our decisions—after the fact—to justify the choices we make. It's called post-hoc justification.
Here's an example of how post-hoc justification works. A study by Yale researchers1 found that people making hiring decisions actually shifted the job criteria to fit the candidate they wanted to hire. In the study, participants were asked to hire a new police chief for a hypothetical police department. They evaluated separate applications from a male (Michael) and female (Michelle) applicant. The male applicant was presented as having more street smarts, and the female applicant was presented as having more formal education. The hiring evaluators' subconscious impression of the female applicant was negative, but they found logical reasons for justifying that impression after they made their decision to hire the male applicant (post-hoc).
The study found that evaluators decided that “street smarts” were the most important trait for the position of police chief when they decided to hire the male applicant. However, when the names were reversed on the résumés in the hypothetical example and “formal education” was listed as the male applicant's strength, evaluators decided that “formal education” was the most important trait for the position, and that was the reason given for hiring the
