In a study that examined bias in the workplace, a University of Florida researcher found that those in management positions demonstrate explicit and implicit bias toward others from marginalized groups and often express more implicit bias than people who are not in management. The study, published this month in Frontiers in Psychology, drew from 10 years of data publicly available from Harvard University’s Project Implicit, a repository of information from more than 5 million people.
Respondents to the Project Implicit survey who identified as managers had similar levels of bias to those in what researchers called white collar occupations, like medical doctors and those in the business and financial sector. They had less bias than those working in physical labor and blue-collar jobs, like food production, transportation and protective services. Additionally, the managers expressed more bias than people whose job code involved bettering the human condition and protecting the environment, like educators, artists and social scientists, according to the study. Training, equity advisors, checks and balances and other practices should be imbedded in the system — not once-a-year activities.
— source University of Florida | Dec 1, 2022