We can at least try to understand our own motives, passions, and prejudice, so as to be conscious of what we are doing when we appeal to those of others. This is very difficult, because our own prejudice and emotional bias always seems to us so rational.
T.S. Eliot
Student Activity!
With your partner(s), discuss the following.
- What is bias?
- How can it affect communication?
Share your answers with the group
What is Bias?
Bias. It’s something we all have. What’s more, the extent to which our communications are governed by it is frequently overlooked. Determining bias (our own and others’) in writing and other forms of messaging is an important aptitude in academic and professional writing and communication.
The ability to construct effective writing and formulate compelling messages derives from being bias aware. Dictionary.com defines bias as,
- “a particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned.”
Student Activity!
With your partner(s), discuss the following.
- How do you think people develop bias?
- Have you ever experienced bias? What happened? How did it make you feel?
Share your answers with the group
Conscience and unconscious Bias
Bias can be conscious /explicit, that is to say something that we are cognitively aware of, or it can be unconscious / implicit. Subconscious bias refers to deep held beliefs that are triggered automatically and without the awareness of the individual.
Humans start to develop implicit biases from the day we are born. Bias evolves from our experiences including,
- Our experiences of the world and how we interact with those around us.
- Who we see and how they behave,
- Who we admire and what we admire them for.
- Who we fear and why we fear them.
- The traumas we’ve encountered and the abuses and losses we’ve suffered.
- Whom we like and how that makes us feel.
- Whom we dislike and the motivations behind that.
- The beliefs and norms we inherit from our guardians, authority figures, and society.
- The cultures that we grow up in.
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