h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I had an e-mail from my employer the other day. It told me that it was not enough for me to participate in all the diversity training. I had a more fundamental problem - I was unconsciously biased.

Not me individually, mind - it was sent to the whole workforce. We had collectively been making our everyday decisions based on something evil deep within our psyche, and it was time to put a stop to it. The company will shortly be rolling out some new training to root it out. It will be mandatory, of course.

So, in anticipation of what this might be, I thought I'd do some research. Unconscious bias can concern race, gender, religion, orientation, etc. It can be the reason we don't have enough girls in science or Muslims as professional footballers.

In my search, I found a fascinating self-test on the subject. This is part of a serious scientific study at some US universities, including Harvard. I put on my best liberal frame of mind and took the Gender bias test. I failed, miserably. I'll try the others in due course.

Have a go yourself - you'll need to set aside 20 minutes or so without interruptions. Let me know how you get on:

http://www.tolerance.org/Hidden-bias

I love the Project Implicit tests. They're a talking point for analysis of what influences our unconscious ideas. And it's not a finger-pointing exercise - an unconscious bias doesn't make you 'evil'.

Since you're interested in doing gender bias, I did the two gender-related ones.

Predictably, I have 'little or no association' with gender and science. Duh. One of my sisters is a retired physics teacher. She's much better at maths than I am. (She would have to be.)

I DID turn out to have a moderate unconscious bias toward gender and career. And that was interesting, because the people in my generation don't split that way - everybody works at something. But my mother was a stay-at-home mom, and I'll bet that did it.

Now, it occurs to me that this is a really good why to identify where your unconscious thinking comes from - what a useful tool.

'When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all...'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLsDxvAErTU

OK - I did it. It doesn't take as long as 20 mins, unless you do two or more. In fact, you are encouraged to be quick, so that your answers are spontaneous.

Apparently I prefer young people to old ones. As a granny, I should hope I do!

I really struggled with the technique of sorting, but it got better with practice so I was slow at sorting "gay" and "good" together and appeared to be better at associating "gay" with "bad" (for their definition of "gay" and "bad")... I then did the same test again and got the opposite result. I'm glad it asks how often you've taken the test, as (in my case at least) that was a strong influence on the result...

I have mixed feelings about taking this kind of test. What if I get bad results and find that I can't change anything? Won't that produce bad feelings with no compensating advantages?

Take the one that tells you whether you're sad, Paul. There are helpful phone numbers, just in case.

I take antidepressants so I *won't* be sad.

I wouldn't worry, paul. These tests are designed by people who want to socially engineer us. I'm sure that given time we would all learn to love and respect our fellow man without this kind of intervention, but that could be eons away. These people want it tomorrow. My employer wants it yesterday.

Bosses and editors always want it yesterday.

Social engineering doesn't have a great track record. To the extent that it does have an impact, it succeeds by giving malleable people a menu of techniques. For instance, the sensitivity training that cops get consists of having them put themselves in other people's shoes and describe what they hear other people saying, so eventually both sides will understand the other's point of view. I'm oversimplifying, but that's the gist.

I did the one on religion and was surprised but not incredulous at the result. I can see the value of such tests; they catch you off your guard and show you a candid camera picture.