Unconscious Bias, Gender and the Workplace: Unconscious biases are preferences that inform our judgements, behaviors and decisions. Unconscious bias is typically automatic, based on stereotypes, and is triggered by our brain making quick judgements about people. Biases are influenced by our cultural and personal experiences. Unconscious bias can be particularly problematic when it conflicts with, and therefore undermines, the equity goals organizations are consciously committed to. This session will address the impact of unconscious bias in work place, focusing on the role gender plays in judgments about competence, authority, merit and leadership.
Angela Ballantyne is an Associate Professor in Bioethics at Otago University. She originally developed this seminar to educate her medical students, and now presents to a wide range of audiences and organizations in both the public and private sectors.
Dr Ballantyne’s research interests include exploitation, research ethics, vulnerability, the ethics of pregnancy and reproductive technologies, and secondary use research with clinical data. She was President of the International Association of Bioethics (2016-2017) and served for eight years on the Central Ethics Committee NZ. She has worked in schools of Medicine, Primary Healthcare and Philosophy in Australia, England and the United States; and as the Technical Officer for Genetics and Ethics at the World Health Organization in Geneva. In 2018 and 2008 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Yale University Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.