Unconscious bias in appointment procedures

It is of significant importance to deal with one's own unconscious thought patterns. These decision-making and judgement flaws can be identified through consistent reflection.

Factors such as lack of time, annoyance, multitasking and cognitive workload play a crucial role and can significantly affect our judgement. It is therefore important to recognise these factors and understand how they influence our judgement.

A structured approach to decision-making processes can help to create clarity and proceed more systematically. This includes considering how emotional intuition or ‘gut feeling’ can be backed up by evidence. By becoming aware of these aspects, we can improve the quality of our decisions and at the same time reduce the risks of poor decisions.

Various intervention practices can be used to make informed and balanced decisions. One effective method is the use of standardised procedures with integrated reflection loops that allow the decision-making process to be continuously rethought and adapted.

Checklists can be helpful in identifying and avoiding possible biases. It is also important to define clear and objective selection criteria with corresponding evaluation scales and to consistently review decisions based on these defined criteria.

It also useful to critically question first impressions and carry out a cause analysis for sympathy and suitability in order to minimise unconscious thought patterns.

Collective decision-making facilitates the diversity of opinions and enables different perspectives to be brought into the decision-making process. It should also be ensured that biases in the group can be openly addressed.

In addition, free spaces and breaks are important for decision- makers, as they offer the opportunity to relax and clear their heads.

Based on gender, certain character traits and behaviours are attributed to people and these are naturalised through performative repetition.

Masculinity and femininity are generalised and individual characteristics are suppressed. Men are therefore often ascribed agentic characteristics such as ‘assertive’, ‘strong leader’, ‘courageous’ and ‘decisive’, while women are ascribed more communal characteristics such as ‘compassionate’, ‘understanding’, ‘team-orientated’ or ‘friendly’.

These are different presumed causes for men and women with the same performance. Men are considered to be more intrinsically motivated (inner drives) and women more extrinsically motivated. This can lead to different evaluations: Women's success is attributed to support from others, while men's success is attributed to their own competences.

Humans have different distinguishing characteristics. This generates an unconscious concern about confirming a stereotype or being judged on the basis of it. For example, girls perform worse in maths tests if stereotypes that girls are worse at maths are addressed beforehand. This can also lead to female scientists not applying for positions if mainly agentic wording is used (see gender bias). This also leads to men applying for positions when they fulfil 60% of the requirements, while women only apply when they fulfil over 90%.

The achievements of women tend to be underestimated, while those of men are overestimated. This is because women are judged on the basis of past performance and must first prove their abilities, whereas men are judged on future potential. Their abilities are taken for granted.

In appointment procedures, questions are often unconsciously based on these stereotypical attributions: Men are asked promotion-oriented questions (goals, advancement), women are asked prevention-oriented questions (security, responsibility). As a result, men stand out favourably in recruitment processes.

People tend to favour the opinions of superiors or people who are seen as experts. They are influenced by supposed expertise. This can lead to participants in meetings listening to the opinions of experts overly and adopting them without reflection.

When searching for and evaluating information, people tend to confirm existing opinions and expectations. Conflicting information is often unconsciously faded out and the overall picture is ignored. The previously formed positive opinion of a candidate can lead to poor preparation not being noticed during the presentation.

A group may tend to avoid conflict and reach consensus. This can lead to a lack of critical evaluation and consideration of ideas. Individual points of view are lost. Possible triggers are time pressure, stress, authority within the group (see authority bias).

Halo effect, horn effect, affinity bias, racial bias ...