Bias in Appointment Procedures

Everyone has unconscious biases that develop based, for example, on prior experiences or the cultural environment. Unconscious biases influence our thinking and actions. They are activated subconsciously, for example, when making decisions with limited information or under time pressure.

Unconscious biases also affect how we perceive and evaluate others — often without being aware of these subconscious processes. While unconscious biases can be helpful to navigate everyday life, they can also be dangerous, leading to irrational or poor decision-making.

In personnel selection processes, such as professorial appointment procedures, unconscious bias can cause systematic distortions and lead to discrimination and disadvantages for certain groups of applicants. Unconscious biases can relate to a person’s gender (gender bias), but also to other factors such as age, origin, or appearance. Often, combinations of characteristics play a role (intersectionality).

Unconscious biases can result in women being disadvantaged in appointment procedures because they are evaluated differently than male applicants. Gender biases can affect all stages of the appointment process — from the evaluation of submitted documents to the assessment of presentations and interviews, or the decision on the ranking of candidates.

The academic literature identifies a wide range of unconscious biases. Important examples in the context of professorial appointment procedures include:

  • Similarity or Affinity Bias: We tend to evaluate people more positively when we share similar characteristics and can identify with them.
  • Halo Effect: A person is evaluated positively based on a particular competence or strong performance in one area. This positive impression is then generalized and leads to an overall positive evaluation of the candidate. The Horn Effect refers the opposite: a weakness or poor performance in one area leads to a generally negative assessment of a candidate.
  • Authority Bias: We tend to give more weight to the opinion of people that are perceived as influential or as experts. We then allow their views to influence our own judgment disproportionately.
  • Group Thinking: In group settings, there is often a strong desire to reach consensus. As a result, individual opinions can be overlooked or undervalued. Diverse viewpoints may be lost.

Gender Biases refers to a group of cognitive biases that arise based on different genders. People having different genders are stereotypically assigned certain traits and behaviors, which tend to disadvantage and discriminate against women. Research has shown that identical behaviors are often evaluated differently depending on whether they are displayed by a male or a female candidate. Furthermore, achievements of female candidates tend to be questioned more critically. There are also persistent assumptions about an ideal type of academic career that are more often aligned with traditionally male career paths.

  • Raising Awareness: Awareness raising among members of professorial appointment committees can help to counteract the influence of unconscious bias. Awareness raising can help to create a shared understanding of how biases affect decision-making.
  • Structured Procedures: The use of structured processes is essential for reducing the influence of bias. Appointment committees should develop and consistently apply a set of evaluation criteria that guide the assessment of all candidates throughout the entire selection process. The use of standardized interview questions is also an important tool in ensuring fairness and consistency.
  • Critical Reflection: A key method for mitigating bias is to critically reflect on one’s own evaluations: Why do I evaluate a person positively or negatively? Committee members should not only reflect on their own judgments but also support one another in identifying the potential influence of unconscious biases. Often, unconscious biases are easier to recognize when observing others in contrast to realizing one’s own biases.
  • Reducing Time Pressure: Appointment committees frequently operate under significant time pressure, which can increase the likelihood of bias-driven decisions. Committees should ensure that there is sufficient time for each step of the process and include breaks in their time schedule to allow for thoughtful and well-considered decisions.
  • Raising Awareness Among External Reviewers: External evaluations play a central role in professorial appointment procedures. Committees might want to point reviewers to the relevance of unconscious bias in assessments and encourage them to reflect on their own evaluations. Reviews should also be critically examined for potential biases.

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