United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

1. United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Unconscious Bias Krista Watson Program Analyst

2. What is “unconscious bias”? Assumptions Stereotyping Cognitive shortcuts Implicit associations The tendency of our minds to judge individuals based on characteristics of groups – “Filling in the Blanks”

3. “95% of what we tell you is true we have never seen. We think it is true based on the 5% we have seen” Harold Meyers 3

4. Don’t Answer Out Loud A man is at work and wants to go home. However, he will not go home because a man wearing a mask is waiting there for him. What does the first man do for a living?

5. Don’t Answer Out Loud A man and his son are driving in a car one day, when they get into a fatal accident. The man dies instantly. The boy is knocked unconscious, but he is still alive. He is rushed to the hospital and sent immediately to surgery. The surgeon enters the emergency room, looks at the boy and says “I can’t operate on this boy, he is my son”. How is this possible?

6. Unconscious Bias • What Does the Research Say?

7. “Mark of a Criminal Record”Devah Pager – 2003 Employers in Milwaukee were given a hypothetical situation. They were asked whether they would hire an applicant who was reasonably well qualified for a vacant position but had a recent drug conviction and eighteen months of prison. 60% of the employers said they would hire the applicant. This percentage was roughly the same whether the applicant was black or white.

8. “Mark of a Criminal Record”Devah Pager – 2003 However, months before the survey both white and black testers with and without drug convictions and criminal records applied for positions with these same employers

9. “Mark of a Criminal Record”Devah Pager – 2003 • 34% of whites without a conviction were called back • 17% of whites with a conviction were called back • 14% of blacks without a conviction were called back • 5% of blacks with a conviction were called back

10. “Are Emily and Brendan More Employable thanLakisha and Jamal?,” Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan – 2002 • Hypothetical white applicants 50% more likely receive call backs • Improvement in resume quality significantly improved the call-back chances for white applicants only http://gsb.uchicago.edu/pdf/bertrand.pdf

11. Complexion Counts in Immigrant Wages – Joni Hersch, Vanderbilt University - 2007 • Survey of over 2000 legal immigrants • Those with lightest skin made 8%-15% more than those with darkest skin • One shade lighter had the same effect as an additional year of education • Other factors such as English-language proficiency , education, occupation, race and country were considered, but skin tone persisted as a determining factor

12. Joan Williams, University of California, Project for Attorney Retention, 2009 • 50-70% female attorneys perceived they are held to higher standards than their male counterparts • Female attorneys given lower performance ratings than male attorneys, regardless of the gender of the evaluator • 22 male attorneys earned all “5’s”. 2 female attorneys earned all “5’s”. Women accounted for 38% of all attorneys evaluated • “hard driving” female attorneys deemed difficult to work with

13. Age Preferences Against Older Women for Entry Level Jobs - Joanna Lahey, Texas A&M University - 2006 • 4000 fake resumes sent to employers in Boston and St. Petersburg. For entry level positions only. All with no more than ten years experience listed • High school attendance dates listed • Women 35 to 45 were 43% more likely to get an interview than women 50 to 62

14. Height 30% of Fortune 500 CEO’s are 6 foot 2 and taller. In U.S. only 4% of all men are 6 foot 2 or taller. 90% of CEO’s above average height. (Malcolm Gladwell – Blink) Study controlled gender, weight and age – each inch of height = $789 pay per year (University of Florida 10/16/03)

15. Blind Auditions for MusiciansSymphony Orchestras Screen between judges and musician increases by 50% the probability that a woman will be advanced from certain preliminary rounds and increases several fold the likelihood that a woman will be selected in the final round. American Economic Review 2000

16. Measurement of Implicit Bias • The Implicit Assumption Test (IAT) IAT’s have been conducted at the website: https://implicit.harvard.edu. • Measures implicit bias against explicit bias.

17. Implicit biases live in subjective decisions, such as: - performance evaluation - hiring - promotion - compensation - job assignment

18. SOCIALIZED BIAS? • Education contributes little toward equality between men’s and women’s earnings. • Widest pay gaps occur in the best-paid jobs with most highly educated workers, like doctors, lawyers, scientists, executives. • Pay gap narrows but persists at bottom of the wage scale where male and female dishwashers earn about the same.

19. Princeton University Press • Nearly all women in their 20’s said their negotiating skills set them apart from earlier generations. • Women of all ages, including 20’s, far less likely than men to initiate salary negotiations and more likely to take whatever the employer offered. Women negotiate much less frequently and intensely than their male colleagues for pay, promotions and RECOGNITION which lead to upper mobility.

20. UCLA Study • 70% of male business graduates said they deserved more money than other job applicants. This compares with the 70% of female business graduates who said they were due salaries equal to other applicants. • 85% of men, but only 17% of women felt is was up to them to make sure the company paid them what they were worth.

21. Negotiate! • Carnegie Mellon masters graduates; only 7% of women, contrasted with 57% of men, negotiated their salaries. • Those men and women who negotiated were able to raise their salary by an amount slightly more than the average difference between starting salaries for men and women.

22. Exercise • Pick a Disability • Blindness • Cerebral Palsy • Mental Retardation • Quadriplegic • Pick one if you had to have one – pick the one you would least want to have

23. Exercise • Our reactions to each disability is driven by 3 things: • What we don’t know – myths and stereotypes • What we do know • Pain

24. Some Things to Consider Consciously strive to minimize influence of unconscious bias. Instruct hiring committees to avoid bias. Spend sufficient time evaluating each applicant and avoid distractions – don’t fill in the blanks. Reach out to applicants from underrepresented groups.

25. Some Things to Consider Develop evaluation criteria prior to evaluating applicants and stick to it. Assure evaluation committees are diverse. Switch gender/race in your mind. Have decision makers take implicit association test. Train on unconscious bias.

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