The fact that you might not be able to put your finger on what activates your gut immediately doesn’t mean it will forever remain that way. The subconscious mind may merely be ahead of the conscious mind. Once you realise what put you on edge, you’d be pretty well placed to figure out whether your gut was being smart or just biased.
But that is just one type of intuition or gut feel. Another type of intuition is where there is a lot of information and it isn’t worthwhile to tease out every piece and consciously weight each as if a mathematical equation were involved. You just have to allow it all to swirl around like a soup as you decide whether to take the deal or go out with someone or, if you’re a judge, what penalty to impose. And you’re right that it becomes difficult to say in any particular case whether an inappropriate bias came into play. Perhaps the person who makes the decision might think he or she made an unbiased decision. But there have been analyses of particular Judges’ decisions over time that have revealed biases in favour of, for instance, private school alumni.
Of course, that makes it difficult to prove what has motivated people in particular instances. But trends will become apparent over time. And questions asked by employers and the like that seek information that might lead to discrimination should be banned, no matter how much the interviewer might claim they’d never use that information unlawfully, e.g marital status, sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion.
There have been many stories of applications being submitted with equivalent qualifications but one with an Anglo name and the other with a name that suggested the candidate was black. Surprise, surprise, the Anglo name would be called in for interview while the Black name would be screened out by HR’s gut instinct.
But that is just one type of intuition or gut feel. Another type of intuition is where there is a lot of information and it isn’t worthwhile to tease out every piece and consciously weight each as if a mathematical equation were involved. You just have to allow it all to swirl around like a soup as you decide whether to take the deal or go out with someone or, if you’re a judge, what penalty to impose. And you’re right that it becomes difficult to say in any particular case whether an inappropriate bias came into play. Perhaps the person who makes the decision might think he or she made an unbiased decision. But there have been analyses of particular Judges’ decisions over time that have revealed biases in favour of, for instance, private school alumni.
Of course, that makes it difficult to prove what has motivated people in particular instances. But trends will become apparent over time. And questions asked by employers and the like that seek information that might lead to discrimination should be banned, no matter how much the interviewer might claim they’d never use that information unlawfully, e.g marital status, sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion.
There have been many stories of applications being submitted with equivalent qualifications but one with an Anglo name and the other with a name that suggested the candidate was black. Surprise, surprise, the Anglo name would be called in for interview while the Black name would be screened out by HR’s gut instinct.