Social Sustainability
Unconscious Bias
Automatic, unexamined stereotypes shaping decisions — the mechanism behind discrimination that no one intends.
Definition
Unconscious bias is the operation of learned stereotypes and associations outside conscious awareness, influencing perception, judgement and decisions — whom we hire, promote, believe and interrupt — often contrary to stated egalitarian values. Measured by instruments such as the Implicit Association Test, biases around gender, race, age and disability are documented across hiring, medicine, and performance evaluation, and they aggregate into the structural gaps of pay, leadership and opportunity.
Overview
The overview for this term is being prepared.
Review
Help keep this definition useful and accurate.
Submitted reviews stay private until an editor decides whether to accept and attribute them.
Contribute to this entry
How would you like to contribute?
Every endorsement and suggested edit is checked by an editor before anything changes publicly.