Unconscious prejudice is not like discrimination. They are created unconsciously by culture and society, by family and peer groups. Unconscious bias is based on unconscious expectations or stereotypes that shape people’s perceptions of and behavior toward other people. The most common unconscious biases are the anchoring effect, confirmation bias, and the group effect. What are some other common biases and how to overcome them?
Blindspot bias
The term that gave the name to this bias comes from the English expression “blind spot”, which means a dead spot. It is used to describe what a person literally cannot see when, for example, driving and only looking ahead and in the rear-view mirrors. Everything else on the road that remains hidden from their view is a blind spot. Applied to psychology, it is the tendency to recognize bias in others but not in oneself.
A study conducted in the US by the scientists who discovered this prejudice Emily Pronin and her colleagues Daniel Lin and Lee Ross proved that most participants thought they were victims of less prejudice than the national average, and only one participant assumed that this happened to him above average. If a person thinks they have never succumbed to prejudice, they have probably experienced the blind spot bias. This inability to recognize when a person has succumbed to prejudice limits him.
To be more alert to this phenomenon, people first need to understand that their reality is not the same as everyone else’s. What a person has learned, experienced, and believed shapes his worldview, but it can also shape the way he sees others. It is important to try to understand others and to challenge hidden assumptions. Also, be open and curious about the world, read and ask questions, as this will broaden your horizons. The tip for dealing with this type of unconscious bias is to listen to what the person is saying. When you recognize a stereotype, you have to break it. This is the best way to end the blind spot bias.
Self-serving bias
If someone has ever done something amazing and felt proud of their successes, but when things did not go the way they planned, blamed other people or external factors for the failure, then that person has fallen into trapped in self-serving bias. This is the tendency for a person to take credit for success and point the finger at something beyond his control as the culprit for failure.
People’s tendency to do this limits them both in their personal lives and at work. When things do not happen the way a person wants, he can approach it in two ways – continue to look for others to blame or analyze the situation from another angle. If this situation were to happen now, it is important to ask what are the alternatives for responding and what new way would change the course of events. This will prepare them to react better in subsequent situations and help them to limit self-bias.
Dunning-Kruger Effect
Most people have probably heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but few realize that they witness its consequences every day. It is named after two psychologists who first described this phenomenon. David Dunning and Justin Krueger explore why some people think they are more competent than others, but in fact they lack the expertise. The Dunning and Kruger test takers who scored the worst actually rated themselves as high achievers and believed they had done brilliantly on the tasks. In fact, they have overestimated their knowledge and skills and, blinded by this prejudice, lacked the ability to evaluate themselves realistically.
The opposite was also proven, often those who had the best results on the test rated themselves as not doing well. The Dunning-Kruger effect causes people to overestimate their own skills, prevents them from recognizing their mistakes and lack of knowledge on a given topic, and limits them from recognizing the expertise of others around them.
The Dunning-Kruger effect limits people because it influences the decisions they take based on a false sense of knowledge and competence. Or to prevent them from taking a step because they feel that their knowledge is insufficient, although in reality it is more than satisfactory. A study that Dunning and another colleague, Erlinger, conducted showed that men and women did equally well on tests in science fields, but women underestimated how they performed and felt they had failed. This means that fewer women would participate in competitions on the subject. This limits them and deprives them of opportunities available to people who do not exhibit this prejudice.
All people are susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect, but there are strategies to reduce its impact. When a person thinks they are an expert on a subject, it is important to keep reading material and being interested in it. The more he knows, the more he realizes how much he still has to learn. Thus, the assessment of one’s own knowledge on the subject will be more realistic. The next step is to seek constructive feedback from those around you. It is not always pleasant to hear the opinion of others, but it helps a person to grow. Third, but not of least importance, is to question knowledge so that one can continue to develop it. It’s easy to fall back into the trap of confirmation bias and focus only on what you want to hear and repeat your point of view. When in everyday life a person realizes that he can often succumb to the Dunning-Kruger effect, he will tear himself away from this trap and all the limitations with which it limits him.
