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Equal Opportunities

Unconscious Bias


Discrimination can be caused by unconscious bias. These are cognitive distortions of perception of which we are not aware. These distortions arise in connection with stereotypes and social discrimination processes. They affect our judgements, decision-making and actions. They can influence personnel selection decisions and performance evaluations and lead us to unintentionally evaluate people unfairly, even if we think we are acting objectively and in the spirit of fairness.

This video was created based on an actual case of discrimination, it contains exemplary stereotypical attributions for illustration.

Below you will find an explanatory video on the topic of Unconscious Biases. The video was created by the Department Gender & Diversity Management at the University of Cologne in cooperation with the Central Gender Equality Officer.
 

Here you can find the accessible version with audio description.

Further information and sources:

The idea with the mosquito bite comparison has been cited many times, our first found source on this is this video from 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDd3bzA7450

Expected to be available in English in early 2024.

Trainings on the topic of Unconscious Bias at the University of Cologne

Registration for all workshops and trainings is through the further education program of the Human Resources Development :
https://fortbildung.uni-koeln.de/veranstaltungsangebot/index_ger.html

 

 

Further links on the topic

Test to measure one's own prejudices, Harvard University:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html

Anti-Bias explanatory video, FUMA Gender & Diversity Unit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Bvd8IOIh4

Explanatory video on stereotypes, Amnesty Switzerland:
https://www.amnesty.ch/de/menschenrechtsbildung/schule/material/diskriminierung-in-drei-minuten-erklaert#&gid=1&pid=1 

Anti-Bias explanatory video, German Research Foundation:
www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8757KqqeSbc