Checking Your Blind Spot
Topic: Cognitive bias
by Ali, 2019 Cohort
Biases are inherently part of all facets of life and continue to play a significant role in understanding the world around us. Daniel Kahneman (a renowned psychologist) argued for a distinction between how people think (namely fast vs slow thinking). Fast thinking is rapid and emotionally driven whereas slow thinking is part of rational decision making. This distinction can be mapped to the human mind’s ability to automatically categorise vast amounts of information. We achieve this by relying on mental shortcuts based on practical experiences (heuristics) to solve problems in an efficient manner. Despite these shortcuts proving frequently useful they often have their shortcomings. With the influence of personal opinions, bias is a preference that influences judgement from being balanced. I will focus on unconscious bias towards studying Engineering. The unconscious mind can process significantly more information than our conscious mind based on heuristics however often relies on instinct and not analysis. We often categorise people namely on gender and social characteristics. These groupings give rise to stereotypes and are often established as young children, thus making it difficult to rectify until later in life. As an undergraduate engineering student who frequently facilitates engineering themed workshops to high schools, common student responses to ?How would you define Engineering’ often paints a familiar picture. These are a ?tendency to use masculine pronouns to describe roles’ and a ?focus on describing technical skills such as Mathematics and Science to solve problems’. Current engineering messages in society largely portray engineering as challenging, demanding and stressful. Many people understand an engineer to be someone who does manual work (likely with machinery). This misconception can discourage high school pupils (namely females) and promotes a ?manly’ image which does not accurately reflect a profession that continues to constantly evolve.
The illusion truth effect describes our tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure to it. Confirmation bias is often used to interpret this information that endorses our beliefs and views of the world. Frequent portrayals of engineers in popular media often pay too much attention to the technical job aspects (cinema, television). Such depictions reinforce the unconscious bias society has towards engineering, thus constitutes a real barrier to understanding the profession- both from a high school and public awareness level. Whilst many problems are solved by applying mathematics, it is just one of many tools in the engineer’s toolbox. Communication, leadership and innovation are also equally important attributes and must be widely discussed to challenge the engineering biases (job definition and gender) existent in society The difficulty with unconscious bias is the widespread lack of awareness that it exists. Addressing it cannot truly unravel complexity as there is no cure however acknowledging its existence can allow us to have a broader perspective, detect and mitigate emerging biased behaviour over time. The following are some techniques to help promote bias awareness:
- Integrate the topic of bias within the school curriculum.
- Incorporate examples which question stereotypes and embrace diversity
- Encourage participation of under-represented groups in class
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