My posting about hidden bias and its impact on who should be invited to what meeting sparked me to seek research on the topic.  I was struck by a story on the radio earlier in the week about decision making.  The NPR story was talking about the role of the subconscious in people’s decision-making ability.  I stumbled upon several online assessments which uncover what is buried in our subconscious, and the result that has on our actions.

The consistent theme across the various sites is no matter how much we think we are committed to egalitarianism or a meritocracy our “mental residue” as one site names it prohibits us from consistent actions.  No matter what our intentions are, our behaviors diverge.  This may explain why we eat when we are not hungry.

Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created “Project Implicit” to develop Hidden Bias Tests — called Implicit Association Tests, or IATs, in the academic world — to measure unconscious bias. The website Teaching Tolerance (A project from the Southern Poverty Law Center) http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/index.html  offers a variety of resources including an IAT. 

These tests whether you believe in them wholeheartedly or not are useful to discover the values of the dominant culture within an organization.  In many cultures there are tacit values informing people’s behavior–sales or marketing engineer or research.  If you do not possess the traits of the dominant culture there may be hidden bias for or against.  The use of a third-party instrument neutralizes the initial charge often associated with this type of inquiry.  I encourage you to take the test yourself, and be open to the results.  Even if you do not think it tells the whole story, it may illuminate things worthy of consideration.