Do you make snap judgement?

Do you make snap judgement about others based on their age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, appearance or peoples educational background?

If you are anything like me , you probably do. The way we perceive others has a bearing on how we interact and make decisions in our workplace. Research says that we instinctively categorize people and things and that's how we make sense of the world we live-in and so we inadvertently classify people based on their age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality appearance and their educational background and the presumable traits that go with each of those groups .

'She is a new mum", 'he is a middle aged man', 'she smokes?', 'she is from Mysore!' 'I'm a trans..'rings a bell? Well we do it because it saves us a hell of a processing time and effort and frees up our mental space to engage in other activities, but what also happens is that we become victims of Unconscious Bias. 'Unconscious' is the Operative word here.

Want to Test just how your Unconscious Bias plays out? Head over to Project Implicit by Harvard. Be ready to be surprised.They have a whole range of legitimate quizzes to test every kind of bias. From gender to skin-tone to ethnicity.. Turns out i'm biased toward dark skinned tone (i favor dark-skinned tone), no surprise there.

Here are three questions to get you started?

1. Economists have found that the best-looking one third of the population makes 12% more than least attractive individuals.

a. True

b. False

(Leave you response in the comment section)

2. A research group sent to 127 male and female professors two CVs for consideration for a laboratory manager position. Both fictional candidates (Ranjit and Rashmi) were aged 22 and had identical grades and comparable references. Which one of the following likely happened?

a. ‘Ranjit’ was more likely to be hired than ‘Rashmi’ and at a starting salary of Rs.20,000 more.

b. ‘Rashmi’ was more likely to be hired than ‘Ranjit’ and at a starting salary of Rs.20,000 more.

c. Both ‘Ranjit’ and ‘Rashmi’ were equally likely to be hired and at equal starting salaries.

(Leave you response in the comment section)

3. If a new mum returns to your organisation, it isn’t unconscious bias to spare her the stress of overseas business trips for her first hectic year of working motherhood.

a. True

b. False

(Leave you response in the comment section)

So what unconscious biases have you witnessed at your workplace?