Are you biased? I am | Kristen Pressner | TEDxBasel

Summary

The speaker, a woman leader, shares a personal revelation about unconscious bias. Despite advocating for women in leadership, she realized she treated a male and female employee's requests for a raise differently, due to internalized gender stereotypes. She discusses how unconscious biases stem from societal patterns and can lead to unintentional inequality, even among those who support equality. The speaker emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and suggests a technique called 'flip it to test it,' where one mentally reverses gender roles in common scenarios to uncover hidden biases.

Takeaways

• 🤔 The speaker acknowledges her own unconscious bias against women leaders, even though she herself is a woman leader.
• 💼 Despite working in human resources and advocating for women in leadership, the speaker recognizes a discrepancy in how she responded to male and female team members' requests for compensation review.
• 🧠 Unconscious bias stems from brain shortcuts, which filter information based on patterns we've been exposed to throughout our lives, often without us realizing it.
• ⚖️ The speaker realized she had different reactions to the same request from a man and a woman, illustrating the influence of unconscious bias.
• 📊 The expectations society holds for men and women (men as assertive and women as supportive) can unconsciously affect behavior, even when we don't intend it.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The speaker reflects on her own family dynamic, where she is the primary financial provider, yet still holds biased views about men as providers.
• 🔄 A mental exercise of 'flipping it to test it' can reveal hidden biases by reversing gender roles or other characteristics in common situations.
• 👮‍♂️ Gendered language, such as calling a male police officer a 'policewoman,' can feel strange, highlighting societal biases in common expressions.
• 🎉 The speaker humorously illustrates biases by imagining people cheering for 'The Cleveland Caucasians' instead of 'The Cleveland Indians,' making biases more apparent.
• 🔍 The speaker encourages everyone to double-check their actions and reactions for unconscious bias, emphasizing that small mental tests can help reveal hidden prejudices.

Q & A

What bias does the speaker admit to having in the script?

The speaker admits to having a bias against women leaders, despite being a woman leader herself and working in human resources, a field where she encourages women to take leadership roles.

What event led the speaker to realize her unconscious bias?

The speaker realized her unconscious bias after she had different reactions to similar pay requests from a male and a female team member. She took the man's request more seriously than the woman's, despite their requests being essentially the same.

How does the brain contribute to unconscious bias, according to the script?

The brain contributes to unconscious bias by taking shortcuts to manage information overload. It forms patterns based on cumulative experiences, leading to automatic responses that may not align with a person's conscious values.

What are some common expectations society has of men and women, as outlined in the script?

The script outlines that society commonly expects men to be assertive, strong, and driven, while women are expected to be helpful, sensitive, and supportive. These expectations can unconsciously influence how people perceive leadership qualities in men and women.

What personal experience does the speaker share to illustrate her bias?

The speaker shares that despite being the sole financial provider for her family of six, she unconsciously views men as providers and women as caretakers. This internal contradiction made her realize her bias against women leaders.

How does the speaker suggest testing for unconscious bias?

The speaker suggests using a technique called 'flip it to test it,' where you mentally swap the gender of the person you are dealing with to see if your reaction changes. If it feels strange or different, it might reveal an unconscious bias.

What humorous examples does the speaker provide to illustrate the 'flip it to test it' technique?

The speaker humorously flips common phrases to illustrate gender bias, such as imagining a man saying, 'Being called a Policewoman doesn't bother me at all' or cheering for a baseball team called the 'Cleveland Caucasians' instead of the 'Cleveland Indians.'

Why does the speaker believe unconscious bias is dangerous?

The speaker believes unconscious bias is dangerous because it can lead people to behave in ways that are inconsistent with their values and beliefs, often without realizing it. It can also cause missed opportunities to act fairly or to see situations differently.

What is the role of neuroscience in understanding unconscious bias?

Neuroscience helps explain that unconscious bias arises from the brain's need to manage large amounts of information. It filters and categorizes information based on past experiences, leading to automatic responses that are often biased.

What challenge does the speaker pose to the audience at the end of the script?

The speaker challenges the audience to 'flip it to test it' in their own lives to see if they are unconsciously treating people differently based on bias. She encourages self-reflection to ensure their actions align with their values.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 A Personal Bias Against Women Leaders

The speaker admits a surprising bias against women leaders, despite being a woman and a leader herself. She describes how her role in human resources involves advocating for women in leadership. Yet, a situation arose where she reacted differently to compensation requests from a male and a female colleague, unconsciously favoring the man. This moment made her question whether she had an unconscious bias and why she had two separate reactions to similar requests.

05:02

🧠 Understanding Unconscious Bias

The speaker reflects on the concept of unconscious bias, explaining how our brains use shortcuts to manage overwhelming information. While these shortcuts are useful for daily tasks, they also result in unconscious patterns that shape how we perceive and treat others. She draws attention to how societal expectations of men and women influence unconscious bias. Men are often seen as assertive providers, while women are viewed as supportive caregivers, which can affect professional decisions.

👩‍💼 Internal Bias Against Women as Providers

After examining her own reactions, the speaker realizes she views men as providers more seriously than women, even though she is the sole provider for her family. This self-awareness leads her to acknowledge a bias against women leaders, including herself. She highlights research showing that this bias is widespread and often unnoticed, emphasizing how her differing responses to the pay requests revealed an ingrained bias she wasn’t aware of.

🔄 The Value of ‘Flipping It to Test It’

To combat unconscious bias, the speaker suggests a mental exercise: flipping the gender, race, or any other characteristic of a person to check for bias. By mentally switching identities in scenarios, we can expose bias and challenge ingrained patterns. The speaker shares examples, such as imagining the Cleveland Indians being called the Cleveland Caucasians, which illustrates how flipping identities can reveal problematic views. She urges others to adopt this technique to better align their actions with their values.

Keywords

💡Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias refers to the automatic, mental shortcuts our brains take, influencing our actions and decisions without us realizing it. In the video, the speaker realizes that her different reactions to compensation requests from a man and a woman stem from unconscious bias, even though she consciously supports women in leadership. This concept is central to the video’s theme of self-awareness and breaking free from ingrained stereotypes.

💡Brain Shortcuts

Brain shortcuts are mental processes that help us handle vast amounts of information by recognizing patterns. These shortcuts allow us to function efficiently but can also reinforce stereotypes and biases. The speaker illustrates this with how her brain initially treated the pay requests differently based on gender, showing how brain shortcuts lead to unconscious bias.

💡Women in Leadership

The speaker highlights societal biases against women in leadership roles, noting that both men and women, including herself, can unconsciously favor men in these positions. This concept is used to illustrate the larger societal patterns that make it harder for women to be seen as capable leaders, despite evidence and personal experience to the contrary.

💡Expectations of Men and Women

The video contrasts societal expectations for men and women: men are expected to take charge and be assertive, while women are expected to be nurturing and supportive. These stereotypical roles influence how people react to men and women in professional settings, which the speaker observes in her own reactions to the pay requests. These expectations are central to understanding unconscious bias.

💡Provider vs. Caregiver

The speaker examines how society views men as 'providers' and women as 'caregivers,' roles deeply ingrained through cultural exposure. This distinction becomes crucial in the speaker’s realization of why she viewed the man’s pay request more seriously, even though she herself is the sole provider in her family. This reinforces the idea that biases can affect even those who do not fit traditional roles.

💡Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the process of recognizing and reflecting on one’s own thoughts, behaviors, and biases. The speaker's journey towards understanding her unconscious bias illustrates the importance of being mindful of automatic reactions. She encourages others to engage in self-awareness by mentally flipping situations to test their own biases.

💡Flip it to test it

The phrase 'flip it to test it' is a technique the speaker suggests for recognizing unconscious bias. By mentally switching the roles of individuals (e.g., swapping gender in a scenario), one can check whether their reactions would differ. This mental exercise is a practical tool for promoting fairness and challenging ingrained biases, used by the speaker to confront her own biases.

💡Unconscious vs. Conscious

This contrast is central to the message of the video. While people may consciously believe in equality and fairness, unconscious biases often operate in the background, affecting behavior without intent. The speaker's personal story demonstrates how even well-meaning individuals can unconsciously act against their own values.

💡Neuroscience

Neuroscience, which studies the brain and nervous system, backs up the concept of unconscious bias by showing how the brain uses shortcuts to process information. The speaker references neuroscience to explain why humans are prone to bias: our brains prioritize efficiency over conscious thought, which can lead to biased behavior.

💡Stereotypes

Stereotypes are oversimplified and generalized beliefs about groups of people, often leading to biased perceptions and actions. In the video, the speaker reflects on how stereotypes about men and women, such as men being providers and women being caregivers, influenced her judgment in a professional setting. Stereotypes are a key component of unconscious bias.

Highlights

The speaker reveals an unconscious bias against women leaders, despite being one herself.

The brain uses shortcuts to filter information, leading to unconscious bias.

Unconscious bias can cause us to act in ways that contradict our values or beliefs.

The speaker noticed a difference in how she responded to pay raise requests from a man and a woman on her team.

Societal expectations influence our perceptions of men as providers and women as caregivers.

Even though the speaker is the sole financial provider for her family, she still holds bias against women as providers.

We all have some level of bias against women leaders, whether we realize it or not.

The antidote to unconscious bias is to 'flip it to test it'—mentally reverse gender roles to reveal bias.

The speaker discusses the impact of bias when it comes to pay equity and professional treatment.

Simple mental exercises like swapping genders in scenarios can expose biases.

The speaker uses humor to highlight how reversing gender roles can reveal absurdities.

Bias can be embedded in everyday language and common phrases, as demonstrated by examples from Twitter.

We often think we are immune to bias, but research suggests otherwise.

Even those who support women leaders may unconsciously undermine them through ingrained biases.

Recognizing and addressing unconscious bias can lead to more equitable and inclusive environments.

Transcripts

Translator: Ivana Krivokuća Reviewer: Denise RQ

Let me just get this out there.

I have a bias against women leaders.

No one can be more surprised about this than me.

I'm a woman leader.

And on top, I even work in human resources,

which means it's my job to be unbiased.

In fact, I passionately encourage women to step into leadership.

My poor kids would definitely tell you I never stop talking about it.

But in spite of my strong belief that women make great leaders,

I've realized I don't always act like it.

Not long ago, within the same week,

two members of my team asked me to take a look at their compensation.

My first reaction to the man's request was something like, "Yeah, I'll look into it."

My first reaction to the woman's request was something like,

"I'm pretty sure you're good."

Day or so later, I'm sitting at my desk, hard at work, and I somehow connected

what up until then I'd seen as two separate events.

I had two very different reactions to basically the same request,

and I thought, "Huh, what's up with that?

Might I be biased and not even know it?"

But I know what you're thinking.

This is 2016, it's not a topic.

Women leaders are everywhere.

Maybe you, like me, have personally hired or promoted lots of women leaders.

But then I thought, with all this talk of unconscious bias,

might something be going on that I'm not even aware of?

You know, if it's unconscious and all.

For those of you who might not already have been inundated with this

in the corporate world,

it's a simple concept, and it's backed up by neuroscience.

Our brain has to handle way too much information,

so in order to manage it all,

our brain takes the liberty of looking for patterns

and filtering for us what it sees as the most important bits,

like autopilot.

Our brains take shortcuts.

Without these shortcuts,

we'd have to sit and really think through way too much information.

Imagine if every single time you had to think through everything

from how to open doors to how to shake hands

to how to sing "Happy Birthday."

But brain shortcuts do have a downside.

Because they see patterns that are based on the cumulative effect

of everything you've been exposed to throughout your life,

which means the whole thing is happening also in the back of our minds,

which means we're not even aware that it's happening.

This can cause us to behave in ways that are not true to who we want to be,

or how we feel we are, and we might not even know it.

Unconscious bias sounds kind of clinical,

but I looked it up, and other words for unconscious are:

comatose, paralyzed, or senseless.

And other words for bias are bigotry, intolerance, and unfairness.

That would mean we're not just unconsciously biased,

we're actually senseless, intolerant bigots.

(Laughter)

So, that's not something I want to be, consciously or unconsciously.

And here's the scary part: most of us think we can outsmart it.

We believe it when we say things like,

"I don't see race," or "I just hired the best person."

It just so happened that at the time of the two pay requests,

I was doing research on unconscious bias.

And the research said these are our expectations of men.

We expect them to be assertive, and strong, and driven.

And these are our expectations of women.

We expect women to be helpful, and sensitive, and supportive.

If we were to make it a little bit tighter,

we see men as taking charge, and women as taking care.

No, it's not because every single one of us is a misogynist.

It's simply because men taking charge and women taking care

is what we've mostly been exposed to throughout our lives.

And our brains will do the rest,

unconsciously redirecting us into those patterns that it recognizes.

Still feeling like this bias couldn't possibly belong to me,

one of the words jumped out at me.

Wait a minute.

Do I see the man as a provider,

and so I looked at his pay request more seriously?

And do I not see the woman as a provider, and so I've somehow dismissed her request?

In that moment, I had to realize I do.

I see men as providers, but not women, which is really interesting

because I'm the sole financial provider for my family of six.

My husband is a stay-at-home father for our four children.

I take charge. And he takes care.

I'm the last person I can imagine

who could ever have a bias against women leaders,

and yet I had to realize I have a bias against women leaders.

I have a bias against myself.

And if you're thinking, "Wow, bad on her"

(Laughter)

unfortunately, I'm not the only one with this bias.

The research shows that we all have a bias against women leaders.

We just don't know it.

I had both a man and a woman ask me for a raise at the same time,

so I was confronted with my different reactions, real time.

And I could notice it when I was accidentally treating people differently.

Luckily, that happened, and I realized in time,

but how many times have I not caught myself?

How many times have you not caught yourself?

So what's the antidote to being a senseless, intolerant bigot

toward women leaders or anyone else?

It's a big stretch to imagine that we'll always have the opportunity

to crosscheck our reactions with two different people in real life.

But I've realized we don't need to.

We can do this comparison mentally, and it's just as eye opening.

Just mentally flip whoever you're dealing with

for someone else to test yourself.

Like here.

I made a slight change to this slide.

I flipped the photos.

Does anything on this slide feel weird?

Flip it to test it.

If it feels weird, you might want to check yourself.

The more I tried it, the more I saw the value.

In fact, there's this Twitter account that just flips the gender

of things we commonly say, and suddenly, they become funny.

"Being called a Policewoman doesn't bother me at all,

because I know it covers both women and men."

Andrew, Policewoman, age 40.

(Laughter)

Or let's take my hometown baseball team of the Cleveland Indians.

Flip it to test it.

How would you feel to be up in the stands cheering for the Cleveland Caucasians?

(Laughter)

Now, maybe you're thinking, "This doesn't happen to me."

And maybe you're right.

Maybe you are a superhuman person who manages to intercept

those brain shortcuts at exactly the right moment

to ensure you're behaving bias-free and consistently with your values,

and beliefs, and all of your actions.

It could very well be.

But what have you got to lose to double-check yourself?

If we all started to flip it to test it, we might just be surprised

at how often we would choose to behave differently.

Because what if you're missing an opportunity

to see the world differently?

Thank you.

(Applause)