Addressing Unconscious Bias: Steps toward an Inclusive Scientific Culture

Details Addressing Unconscious Bias: Steps toward an Inclusive Scientific Culture Addressing Unconscious Bias: Steps toward an Inclusive Scientific Culture

Jan 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21741401s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #414.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

In this talk I will outline the nature of unconscious bias, as it operates to exclude or marginalize some participants in the scientific community. I will show how bias results from non-conscious expectations about certain groups of people, including scientists and astronomers. I will outline scientific research in psychology, sociology and economics that has identified the impact these expectations have on interpersonal judgments that are at the heart of assessment of individuals' qualifications. This research helps us understand not only how bias operates within a single instance of evaluation, but how evaluation bias can accumulate over a career if not checked, creating an appearance of confirmation of biased expectations.
Some research has focused on how best to interrupt and mitigate unconscious bias, and many institutions--including the University of Michigan--have identified strategic interventions at key points of institutional decision-making (particularly hiring, annual review, and promotion) that can make a difference. The NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program encouraged institutions to draw on the social science literature to create experimental approaches to addressing unconscious bias. I will outline four approaches to intervention that have arisen through the ADVANCE program: (1) systematic education that increases awareness among decisionmakers of how evaluation bias operates; (2) development of practices that mitigate the operation of bias even when it is out of conscious awareness; (3) creation of institutional policies that routinize and sanction these practices; and (4) holding leaders accountable for these implementation of these new practices and policies.
Although I will focus on ways to address unconscious bias within scientific institutions (colleges and universities, laboratories and research centers, etc.), I will close by considering how scientific organizations can address unconscious bias and contribute to creating an inclusive scientific culture.

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