What Works to Reduce Bias? A Multilevel Approach

A rich body of research throughout the social sciences demonstrates that bias--people's tendency to display group-based preferences--is a major obstacle to increasing demographic diversity in the workplace. However, there has been less research and theory on what can be done to reduce workplace bias. The current article fills this gap by providing a theoretically informed multilevel approach for how to intervene to reduce bias in an enduring way throughout the organization. First, we discuss the theoretical foundations of our approach and explain why reducing bias requires intervening at multiple levels. Specifically, drawing on research and theory on the interdependence between people and their social contexts, we describe how workplace bias operates as a cycle and then propose that successfully reducing bias requires intervening at both the individual and organizational levels of the cycle. Second, we review research from psychology on how to effectively reduce bias at the individual level (e.g., by changing attitudes and behavior). Third, we review research from a variety of disciplines on how to effectively reduce bias at the organizational level (i.e., by changing organizational policies and practices). Finally, we conclude by discussing our theoretical contributions and outlining promising directions for future research. A Multilevel Approach to Reducing Bias 3 What Works to Reduce Bias? A Multilevel Approach The diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) space is a booming “big business” (Zelevansky, 2019). By some estimates, organizations in the United States spend $8 billion annually (Mehta, 2019). Despite organizations’ widespread interest in improving their DEI outcomes, one key obstacle that stands in the way is bias: people’s tendency to show a disproportionate preference in favor of some people and/or against other people, often based on social group membership, identity, or background. This could include the tendency to rely on group-based stereotypes to make decisions for hiring (e.g., Greenwald & Banaji, 1995), or to feel or express negative affect or prejudice against someone based on group membership (e.g., Allport, 1954). Bias can occur at either an implicit or explicit level—that is, either outside of or within the bounds of individuals’ conscious awareness (Dovidio et al., 1997; Dovidio et al., 2002; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). In this article, we review and integrate empirically-supported strategies for reducing the expression of bias—people’s prejudice and/or reliance on group based stereotypes—in the workplace. Drawing on past research on the interdependence between people and their social contexts (Hamedani & Markus, 2019; Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Stephens et al., 2012), we propose that workplace bias operates as a cycle. Specifically, workplace bias is reproduced through the ongoing, bidirectional interactions through which individuals (e.g., attitudes and behaviors) and organizations (e.g., policies and practices) influence each other. Consequently, we argue that effectively reducing bias requires interrupting the bias cycle at both levels. A Multilevel Approach to Reducing Bias 4 We proceed as follows. First, we discuss our theoretical model and describe why effectively reducing bias requires a multilevel approach. Second, we review research from psychology addressing how to effectively reduce bias at the individual level (e.g., in attitudes and behavior). Third, we review research from a variety of disciplines on how to effectively reduce bias at the organizational level (i.e., in organizational policies and practices). We conclude by discussing our theoretical contribution and outlining promising directions for future research. Reducing Bias Requires a Multilevel Approach Conceptualizing Bias as a Cycle To reduce the expression of bias in the workplace, we propose that it is necessary to understand how bias is sustained and reproduced in a cycle. As shown in Figure 1, this cycle consists of the bi-directional pathways through which individuals and organizational contexts shape each other (Hamedani & Markus, 2019; Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Stephens et al., 2012). In one direction, people learn about their own and other social groups through their ongoing participation in particular social contexts. These contexts are infused with widely shared beliefs about the relative competence and worth of particular groups (Fryberg et al., 2008; Ridgeway, 2011). In the other direction, people’s understandings of their own and other social groups inform how they interact with others and shape their contexts (e.g., support policies that advantage certain social groups). Why Either-or Approaches so Often Fail By conceptualizing workplace bias as operating in a mutually reinforcing cycle, it becomes clear why changes at either an individual or organizational level are often A Multilevel Approach to Reducing Bias 5 fragile, hard to sustain, or just plain ineffective (Kalev et al., 2006). Indeed, an individual level intervention--an effort to change people’s or groups’ attitudes, beliefs, and behavior--on its own is likely to be ineffective. Interventions that target the individual level, such as countering stereotypes or perspective taking, have been shown to reduce the reliance on group-based stereotypes, reduce prejudice toward outgroups, and improve the quality of intergroup interactions (e.g., Brambilla et al., 2012; Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000; Todd et al., 2011). However, even if these types of interventions successfully reduce employees’ tendency to express bias in their attitudes and behaviors, these changes will not necessarily lead to a reduction in biased outcomes (e.g., hiring or promotion decisions) unless they are paired with organizational policies and practices that reduce bias. For example, encouraging intergroup contact could reduce individual employees’ prejudice toward other employees and increase their motivation to make fair and unbiased hiring decisions. However, if an organization’s policies for sourcing job applications or scoring résumés result in an interview pool that is homogenous, managers will have limited ability to act on intentions to make less biased decisions. Thus, even when individuals are motivated to avoid bias, the policies and practices that guide their decisions can nevertheless be conduits of bias (e.g., Kalev, 2009; Pedulla & Thebaud, 2015; Stamarski & Son Hing, 2015). Conversely, organizational level interventions--that is, efforts to change organizations’ policies and practices--in the absence of individual-level intervention are 1 Although there is an extensive literature on diversity in groups and teams and how to improve their interactions (Dumas et al., 2013; Goncalo et al., 2015; Shemla et al., 2016), this research does not tend to focus on reducing bias or prejudice or on improving intergroup relations more generally. Instead, it focuses on how to leverage the strengths of diversity in a given situation. Since our focus here is on strategies for bias reduction, these literatures are beyond the scope of our article. A Multilevel Approach to Reducing Bias 6 also likely to fail. Indeed, a lack of internal support for diversity programs is a major reason why they are not successfully adopted (Dobbin et al., 2011). If individuals are not open to diversity and motivated to reduce bias, organizational efforts to reduce bias are likely to have little impact or even elicit backlash. Indeed, employees may actively resist these organizational level changes and refuse to adopt them (Dobbin et al., 2015; Lambouths III et al., 2019; Plant & Devine, 2001; Plaut et al., 2011). Consequently, adopting an “either-or” approach to bias reduction will likely fail to reduce the expression of bias in workplace decisions because of the dynamic cycle through which individuals and social contexts influence one another. A Multilevel Approach Because these two levels influence one another (see Figure 1), we further propose that successfully reducing bias requires a multilevel approach that interrupts the cycle of bias at both the individual level (e.g., attitudes and behavior) and organizational level (e.g., hiring, promotion, and mentoring practices). Indeed, intervening at both levels can render the desired changes more likely to endure because reducing bias at one level tends to reinforce and amplify the reduction of bias at the other level in an ongoing cycle. Consider the impact of intervening at both levels: for example, implementing individual programming to enable workers to see people who are different from themselves in less stereotypical terms and also changing the hiring process to reduce the salience of group-based stereotypes. Changes at the individual level should render individuals more receptive and motivated to enact the policies made at the organizational level. Changes at the organizational level should create the conditions that constrain bias and reduce the opportunity for biased decisions. A Multilevel Approach to Reducing Bias 7 Although interventions at both levels seek to reduce bias, they strive to do so in different ways. At the individual level, the interventions we review are mostly from the psychological literature and are often referred to as “prejudice reduction interventions” (Dixon et al., 2012; Dovidio et al., 2016; Paluck & Green, 2009). These interventions focus on changing individuals’ hearts and minds--i.e., reducing people’s prejudice and/or reliance on group based stereotypes. The assumption is that doing so will improve people’s attitudes and behavior toward members of negatively stereotyped and/or lower status groups across domains (e.g., decisions about whom to hire and the quality of intergroup interactions). In contrast, at the organizational level, the interventions we review focus on changing policies and practices to lay the groundwork for less biased and more equitable behavior. They seek to do so by reducing the salience or rele