Check Yourself Have I stereotyped the person I’m talking to?

We all use stereotypes in our thinking, it’s just human nature. However, we need to be careful if we’re making assumptions simply because we know someone ‘just like them’. It’s likely we would be stereotyping that person. Alternatively, we might not know anyone ‘like them’, and so are making assumptions based on general stereotypes. Both situations are problematic.

Stereotypes are a consequence of representativeness bias, which is the tendency to match things, including people, to our previous experiences and can lead to perceived similarities between people that aren’t necessarily there.

Stereotyping can result in valuing or dismissing someone’s information based on preconceptions about their characters. For example, someone with glasses and in a suit could be seen as more knowledgeable than someone in a hard hat and overalls. We could therefore give their information more credibility and value within the investigation, despite the fact that on jobsites it’s often the workers that know most about the situation!

Suggested actions:

For Interviewers

• Be very mindful of stereotyping as its very hard to overcome, you need to check yourself frequently to manage this bias.
• Pay attention and actively listen to precisely what someone is saying and how they are saying it – the information is the important thing.
• Avoid making presumptions about how or why they might be saying something, just focus on the content.
• If possible, have a colleague in the interview with you, as you will likely have different stereotypes and so be affected by this bias in different ways. Comparing notes afterwards allows you to check each other.

For Managers

• Be flexible in your resourcing and ensure enough headroom in scheduling to allow colleagues to support each other as necessary. For SIFs more than one interviewer per interview can help mitigate bias in the process.
• Allow for flexibility in the process and for people to take time out as needed.

Find out more about the stereotypes and representativeness bias here.