Unconscious Bias Glossary.

An overview of the most prominent biases that impact your hiring process, sorted by phase/focus area of the recruitment process (pre-screening, screening & post-screening).

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Negation bias
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Negation Bias

Accent Bias example: They have a strong accent; they might not be a good fit for the team
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Accent Bias

A quote which is an example of primacy bias.
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 Primacy Bias

A quote which is an example of recency bias.
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Recency Bias

What is stereotyping bias? Stereotyping Bias makes you create an over-generalized belief about a particular group of people.
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Stereotyping Bias

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Stereotypering

a quote on Social Desirability Bias which refers to our tendency to respond in ways that we feel are more appropriate or socially acceptable to others, even if the responses are therefore untruthful.
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Social Desirability Bias

Self-Report Bias refers to the incapability of human beings to accurately evaluate themselves.
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Self-Report Bias

Projection Bias is the tendency to think that most other people think and reason like you do, because of something they say or do.
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What is Projection Bias – Definition & Examples in Recruitment

The overconfidence Effect is the tendency to be more confident in your own abilities, such as driving, teaching, or recruiting, than is objectively reasonable.
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Overconfidence Effect

Outcome Bias is an error made in evaluating the quality of a decision when the outcome of that decision is already known.
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Outcome Bias

The out-group homogeneity bias is the perception that out-group members are more similar to one another than your in-group members, e.g. “they are alike; we are diverse”.
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Out-Group Homogeneity Bias

The Ostrich Effect refers to the tendency to figuratively put your head in the sand and avoid information about a project, situation, or work practice you believe may be unpleasant or negative.
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Ostrich Effect

The Mere Exposure Effect is the tendency to develop a preference for things, methods or people that are more familiar to you.
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Mere Exposure Effect

Intuition Bias is the tendency to overemphasise your intuition and follow your intuition, even when you shouldn't.
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Intuition Bias

It makes you create a very negative judgment about a candidate just because one specific characteristic stood out negatively.
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Horns Effect

The halo effect makes you create a very positive judgment about a candidate just because one specific characteristic stood out positively.
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Halo Effect

Gender bias is the tendency to prefer one gender over another, which is influenced by our Stereotyping Bias.
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Gender Bias

Fundamental Attribution Error makes you assume that a person’s actions depend on what “kind” of person they are, rather than on the external factors that influence this person.
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Fundamental Attribution Error

The Framing effect means that you decide on options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations.
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Framing Effect

The Dunning-Kruger Effect occurs when your lack of knowledge and skills in a certain area causes you to overestimate your own competence.
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Dunning-Kruger Effect

Conservatism Bias is the tendency to prefer existing evidence over new evidence that might change your view on something.
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What is Conservatism Bias – Definition & Examples in Recruitment

Contrast Effect makes you judge candidates by comparing them to each other instead of by assessing them individually, which will change your judgment.
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Contrast Effect

Confirmation bias is our tendency to focus on and look for evidence that confirms our existing beliefs of a candidate, rather than information that refutes this belief.
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Confirmation Bias

Cluster Illusion is the tendency to perceive patterns in something that is actually random.
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Cluster Illusion

Beauty Bias makes you prefer a candidate that you perceive as more attractive, than people you don’t find attractive.
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Beauty Bias

The Barnum effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when you believe that generic personality descriptions and statements apply to yourself
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Barnum Effect

The Backfire Effect is the tendency that, when you are presented with evidence that proves that you were wrong about something, you believe your own views even more instead.
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Backfire Effect

Authority Bias means that you give more weight to an idea or thought because it was delivered by someone in a position of power (i.e. an authority figure).
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What is Authority Bias – Definition & Examples in Recruitment

Attribution Bias is the tendency to explain a person’s behaviour by referring to their character rather than any situational factor.
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Attribution Bias

Anchoring Bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on pre-existing information or even the first piece of information you have on a topic when making a decision.
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What is Anchoring Bias – Definition & Examples in Recruitment

The ambiguity effect is a cognitive bias that describes how you tend to avoid options that you consider to be ambiguous or to be missing information.
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Ambiguity Effect

Affect Heuristic (also called Empathy Gap) is a mental shortcut that makes us rely on our emotions, rather than concrete information when making decisions.
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Affect Heuristic/Empathy Gap