← Bias-Aware Decisions
Slide Deck — Manager Workshop

MANAGER & LEADERSHIP TRAINING SERIES

Bias-Aware Decisions

Inclusive Hiring, Reviews & Promotion for Managers

Half-day workshop  •  Grounded in Social Psychology research  •  For people managers & team leads

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Today’s Agenda

01
Mental Shortcuts in Hiring & Reviews
Schemas, priming & heuristics
02
The Halo Effect & Confirmation Bias
How first impressions lock in
03
Where Prejudice Comes From
In-group / out-group mechanics
04
Structural Fixes That Don’t Rely on Willpower
Process redesign that works

+ Personal action planning and wrap-up

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Why This Matters

1
Bias in hiring and reviews rarely looks like open prejudice — it looks like a fast, confident, well-intentioned judgment.
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The fix isn’t trying harder to “be objective” in the moment — it’s understanding the mechanics and structuring the process.
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This course gives you the specific cognitive patterns behind biased decisions, and the structural fixes that actually work.
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MODULE 1

Mental Shortcuts in Hiring & Reviews

Source: Ch. 3 — Social Cognition

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The Shortcuts Behind a Snap Judgment

1
Schemas & priming
Mental shortcuts built from past experience fill gaps with assumption, not fact — and whichever schema was activated most recently shapes how new information gets read.
2
Judgmental heuristics
The availability heuristic (what comes easily to mind) and representativeness heuristic (how well someone matches a mental prototype) substitute a fast guess for a full evaluation.
3
Self-fulfilling prophecy
An early expectation about someone can shape how a manager behaves toward them — which can shape the person’s actual performance, turning a guess into ‘confirmed’ evidence.
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EXERCISE • 20 MIN

The Snap Judgment Exercise

1
Review a short candidate profile and give a quick gut rating before any discussion.
2
See a fuller version of the same profile with added context that changes the picture.
3
Compare initial ratings to the fuller picture — discuss which detail anchored the first impression.
4
Debrief: which heuristic most shaped the initial read?
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KEY TAKEAWAY

A snap judgment isn’t a personal failing — it’s a mental shortcut doing exactly what it’s built to do. The fix is catching it before it hardens into a decision.

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MODULE 2

The Halo Effect & Confirmation Bias

Source: Ch. 3 & 4 — Social Cognition and Social Perception

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How a First Impression Locks In

Two effects that compound in calibration meetings

THE HALO EFFECT
  • One strong trait colors the whole impression
  • Works in both directions — positive or negative
  • Forms fast, often from a single early data point
CONFIRMATION BIAS
  • We notice evidence that fits the existing impression
  • We discount or forget evidence that doesn’t
  • Happens without any deliberate intent to be unfair

The fix isn’t trying harder to “be objective” in the moment — it’s reviewing ambiguous evidence before the overall impression locks in.

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CASE STUDY • 20 MIN

Calibration Case Study

1
Review a case file with a mix of strong and weak data, framed with an early positive impression.
2
In small groups, identify which evidence got “read generously” because of that framing.
3
Re-run with the same data but a negative framing — compare how differently it’s interpreted.
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KEY TAKEAWAY

Once an impression forms, evidence stops updating it and starts confirming it. Structure the process so the evidence comes before the story, not after.

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MODULE 3

Where Prejudice Comes From

Source: Ch. 13 — Prejudice: Causes, Consequences, and Cures

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The Mechanics Behind Prejudice

1
In-group / out-group
People naturally sort others into ‘us’ and ‘them’ with minimal provocation, and see their own group as varied but the out-group as “all alike.”
2
Stereotyping as schema
A mental shortcut applied to a group — speeds up judgment but fills gaps with assumption and resists updating even when contradicted.
3
Scarcity intensifies it
Competition for real or perceived resources (jobs, promotions, status) intensifies in-group favoritism and out-group hostility — often spiking during restructuring.
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DISCUSSION • 20 MIN

Mechanism Mapping Discussion

1
Map where in-group/out-group categorization shows up in ordinary workplace language (“culture fit,” alumni networks, informal groups).
2
Discuss which groupings are functionally necessary — and which quietly create in-group advantage.
3
Full-group share-out: name one place a stereotype substituted for actual information in a real decision.
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KEY TAKEAWAY

Prejudice is not primarily a story about bad individuals — it’s a predictable output of ordinary group psychology under scarcity and category pressure. That makes it interruptible.

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MODULE 4

Structural Fixes That Don’t Rely on Willpower

Source: Ch. 13 — Prejudice (Cures)

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Process Changes That Actually Work

1
Structured interviews
Pre-set questions and scoring, asked identically to every candidate, measurably reduce first-impression halo effects versus unstructured conversation.
2
Blind or sequenced review
Reviewing work product before identifying details, or comparing all candidates on one question before moving to the next, limits the compounding of an early impression.
3
Pre-committed criteria
Defining what “success” looks like before reviewing anyone prevents the bar from quietly shifting to match whoever already impressed you.
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EXERCISE • 15 MIN

Redesign One Step

1
Pick one real step in your hiring, review, or promotion process.
2
In pairs, redesign it to reduce reliance on in-the-moment individual objectivity — using structure, sequencing, or pre-set criteria.
3
Share redesigns with the group; discuss feasibility and expected resistance.
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KEY TAKEAWAY

Objectivity is not a mindset you can will yourself into under time pressure — it’s a property of a well-structured process. Fix the process, not just the intention.

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Your Action Plan

Return to the decision from your pre-work:

Which mental shortcut — schema, priming, availability, representativeness — might have shaped my first read of this person?
Did a halo effect or confirmation bias lock in an early impression before I had the full picture?
Was any part of my read shaped by in-group/out-group signals like “culture fit”?
What is one structural change I can make to this specific process step in the next month?
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Bias hides in the process.

Fix the process, not just the intention.

Thank you  —  Questions & Evaluation

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