Bias is not color blind: Ignoring gender and race leads to suboptimal selection decisions—A registered report.

What is it about?

This research examines what happens when people making hiring decisions can choose whether to see a candidate’s race and gender. Even when participants knew that the hiring test was biased, helping people of certain groups, they often chose not to reveal this information. Across three studies with more than 3,600 participants, including hiring professionals, over half avoided seeing race and gender details, even though doing so led them to make less accurate and less fair decisions. They did this largely because they feared looking biased to others or even to themselves. In contrast, people were much more willing to reveal situational information (like the time of day a test was taken) that also affected scores but did not relate to social identities. The findings show that trying to appear impartial can ironically lead to poorer, less fair hiring outcomes.

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Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Blindfolding—ignoring candidates’ gender and race in selection processes—is a widespread strategy aimed at reducing bias and increasing diversity. Selection tests, however, often unjustly benefit members of certain groups, such as men and White people. In such cases, correcting the bias requires incorporating, rather than ignoring, information about the candidates’ gender and race. The current research shows that decision-makers are reluctant to reveal such information due to their fear of appearing partial. Paradoxically, decision-makers avoid such information, even when fully aware that doing so may perpetuate bias, to protect their social image as impartial, but miss out on the opportunity to advance fairness and choose the best candidates.