Cognitive biases show up in everyday life: how we interpret someone’s tone, what we believe online, who we trust in general, and how we explain other people’s behavior. It’s reasonable to say that cognitive biases shape the world in all sorts of ways. They can be conscious (i.e., explicit) or unconscious (i.e., implicit).
While biases can help you navigate the world and are not a problem by default, we most commonly associate the word with the negative effects of them. There’s a good reason for it: while biases can sometimes help you react adaptively in an uncertain situation, they’re also responsible for making poor judgments that are not based on evidence but on learned patterns. The good news is that with some bias training, you may become better equipped to recognize biases in your own and others, and decide when to let yourself go with the bias flow and when not.
What Is Bias Training?
Bias training is any set of practices meant to help you notice biased thinking early, ask your brain to take it more slowly if needed, and choose a response that’s more rational. This type of training tends to work best when it teaches a small set of repeatable behaviors, such as pauses, questions, and decision structures, that people can use under time pressure. In other words, bias training is about influencing the effect of bias on decisions and behavior
Unconscious bias training is the term you might use if you want to reduce implicit bias, that is, those fast, automatic judgments that can operate outside your awareness, at least at the time of occurrence. According to Greenwald and Banaji (1995), a classic definition of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgments in a way that is not introspectively known by the person at the time.
That is why people call it unconscious or implicit: you can be influenced without noticing the influence as it happens; your ‘autopilot’ can make adaptive decisions at times and be poor at others. The goal of unconscious bias training is to treat automatic reactions as a risk signal and recognize with more ease situations in which it would be better to turn it off, or at least lower its volume.
As you might suspect, conscious bias training is the term you might use if you want to reduce your explicit biases. This is likely a more uncommon scenario; if those are biases that you consciously embrace, it’s unlikely you are going to try getting rid of them because you assume they are accurate assumptions of reality.
That being said, whether by choice or pressure, you may end up engaged in explicit bias training. The goal of such training is to reduce cognitions and behaviors that are typically directed at certain groups. It is done by increasing one’s awareness of their attitudes toward certain groups by, for example, helping them understand the source of their beliefs and asking them to challenge them with counterevidence.
Implicit or explicit, the purpose of bias training is reliability: fewer snap judgments that you cannot explain, fewer double standards, and more decisions grounded in evidence and agreed-upon criteria. Some interventions can produce immediate changes on implicit measures, but those effects can fade quickly without continued practice (Lai et al., 2016). A more durable approach frames bias reduction as habit change: awareness, motivation to improve, and concrete strategies applied repeatedly over time (Devine et al., 2012).
Unconscious and Conscious Bias Training Techniques
Bias awareness helps people learn their bias signals, that is, the early cues that judgment is becoming fast, emotional, or overly certain. Common signals include:
Certainty without evidence (“Obviously…”)
• Labels (“lazy,” “dramatic,” “not leadership material”)
• Mind-reading (“They did that on purpose”)
• Double standards (“If I do it, it is practical; if they do it, it is a problem”)
Unconscious bias awareness training adds one more step: treat those signals as a prompt to slow down and use a specific technique. Awareness is a starting point; practice is what makes it usable (Devine et al., 2012).
A simple way to think about bias training is a four-step loop:
- Notice a bias signal
- Interrupt autopilot
- Replace it with a better move
- Repeat until it becomes familiar
Here are some strategies you can try, even at home:
The Sixty-Second Pause
When you feel fast certainty or a strong emotional reaction, use a short pause:
Name the moment: “I am having a snap judgment.”
• Ask: “What else could be true?”
• Ask: “What information am I missing?”
• Decide after you generate at least one alternative explanation.
This kind of forcing step is especially useful in high-stakes decisions because it might create a small barrier between reaction and action.
If-Then Plans
If-then plans are short scripts you rehearse ahead of time:
• If I notice myself using a label, then I will replace it with a specific behavior description.
• If I feel “culture fit” driving my judgment, then I will switch to pre-defined criteria.
Research suggests implementation intentions can reduce automatic stereotyping and improve control in situations where automatic responses are likely (Stewart & Payne, 2008).
Individuation
Individuation means shifting from group-based assumptions or labels to concrete information about the person and the situation. Practical moves:
• Ask for two specific examples.
• Ask for a counterexample (when did the opposite happen?).
• Separate impact (what happened) from intent (why it happened).
• Use evidence and agreed criteria to decide.
Counter-Stereotypic Exemplars
Your brain’s “default examples” influence how quickly stereotypes come to mind. One way to weaken stereotypes is repeated exposure to counter-stereotypic exemplars – real, vivid examples that contradict the stereotype. This approach can shift automatic attitudes in the short term, and repetition can help those shifts last longer.
Confirmation Bias Challenge
Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that supports what you already believe. Confirmation bias training often works best when it forces you to generate alternatives:
• Write your current conclusion.
• Write the strongest alternative explanation you can.
• Identify one piece of evidence that would support the alternative.
• Decide what small test would reduce uncertainty.
Positivity Bias Challenge
Positivity bias is the tendency to overestimate how well things will go and underestimate risks. A practical counter-move:
• Imagine the plan failed in three months.
• List the top three reasons it failed.
• List one early warning sign for each reason.
This is useful for personal decisions (health, finances, relationships) and group decisions (projects, rollouts) because it makes risk visible early.
Think More than Twice while Online
Many of you have heard that we’re living in a moment in history when truth does not mean as much as it used to. This assumption is most likely correct. The main responsible for this phenomenon is intentional and unintentional disinformation, which largely takes place on social media and some blogs.
So why not try some online implicit bias training? A simple evidence-based tool is an “accuracy prompt”:
• Ask: “Is this accurate?”
• Check one credible source that could disagree with the source.
• If you cannot verify quickly, pause before assuming this is accurate information and not taken out of context, and certainly pause before reposting.
Bias Training in the Workplace
Bias training in the workplace matters because workplace decisions can have lasting effects on opportunity, safety, and access. However, the same training also improves everyday decision hygiene outside work. The most reliable workplace programs combine skill practice with decision design, criteria, structure, and accountability, so fair decisions are easier to produce consistently (Bohnet, 2016).
Bias training for employees should focus on everyday moments:
• Feedback language (labels versus specific behaviors)
• Conflict conversations and escalation
• Team decisions made under time pressure
A practical format is: teach two moves (pause plus one technique), practice scenarios, and set one commitment to use the move at least once in the next week.
Bias training for managers adds system design. Managers shape the decision environment, so training should include:
• Define criteria before reviewing candidates or performance
• Use structured interviews and scoring rubrics where possible
• Score independently first, discuss second
• Require evidence for score changes
Meta-analytic evidence supports structured interviews as more predictive than unstructured interviews, and structure reduces vulnerability to bias from non-job cues (McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt & Maurer, 1994).
Bottom Line: Bias Training Starts with Bias Awareness
The first step toward a world where biases are less likely to influence negative outcomes and more likely to influence positive ones is achieving a higher level of bias awareness. In other words, we need to become better at understanding what biases are and when they are likely to influence our judgments.
Without understanding the risks of biases for ourselves and others, we may not have enough motivation to challenge them as often as we should. With these considerations in mind, next time we make a decision based on a quick judgment or form a quick opinion that is consonant with our core beliefs, let’s consider pausing the autopilot.
Sources
Bohnet, I. (2016, July). Designing a bias-free organization. Harvard Business Review. Link
Croskerry, P. (2003). Cognitive forcing strategies in clinical decisionmaking. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 41(1), 110–120. Link
Devine, P. G., Forscher, P. S., Austin, A. J., & Cox, W. T. L. (2012). Long-term reduction in implicit race bias: A prejudice habit-breaking intervention. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(6), 1267–1278. Link
Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4–27. Link
Kurdi, B., et al. (2019). Relationship between the Implicit Association Test and intergroup behavior: A meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 74(5), 569–586. Link
Lai, C. K., et al. (2016). Reducing implicit racial preferences: II. Intervention effectiveness across time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(8), 1001–1016. Link
McDaniel, M. A., Whetzel, D. L., Schmidt, F. L., & Maurer, S. D. (1994). The validity of employment interviews: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(4), 599–616. Link
