This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is Break the Bias, inviting us to envisage a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. This made me think of stereotype threat and how this phenomenon illustrates just why it is so key to break the bias.

Stereotype threat refers to “being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group”. What this means in simple terms is that an individual’s performance and cognitive ability will suffer even if there is a hint of bias for being of different gender, culture, race, age etc.

The effects of stereotype threat are especially evident in young people but can follow an individual throughout the rest of their life, including in the workplace. 

Having been researched since 1995, the devastating effects of stereotypes and biases on the individual as well as the society are now well documented and understood. It is this very phenomenon that is a great contributor for the achievement and opportunity gaps in under-represented groups in academics and work life. Experiments have shown that even so much as asking students to fill in their background on a form before an exam affects their performance.

However, there are strategies to reduce its effects and help the affected groups succeed. 

First and foremost, simply raising awareness of the stereotype threat phenomenon helps – below is a link for a great article. Providing role models also plays an important part in countering the effects of stereotype threat. The article says, “one study on role models showed that when college women first read about women who had succeeded in architecture, law, medicine, and invention, they performed significantly better on a difficult mathematics test.” (McIntyre et al., 2003). 

In light of this, here at Diversity Talks Real Estate, we will continue to raise the visibility of under-represented groups via industry events to tackle stereotypes and provide role models and are proud to play our part in "breaking the bias".#BreakTheBias #IWD.

Article link: Stereotype threat

Article by Viktorija Grubesic, co-founder and director and Diversity Talks Real Estate