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Affinity Bias

Affinity – The almost inexplicable draw we feel towards people like ourselves, the birds of a feather emotion – that is the one that ends up catching us off guard, and from where stems one of the most common biases to afflict us.

We all feel this draw, it’s a comfort thing. While it is natural that we gravitate toward people like ourselves in appearance, beliefs, and background, the other side of the Affinity Coin is the bias or the prejudice that comes with it.

We may avoid or even dislike people who are different from us. Affinity bias leads to us favoring people who we feel we have a connection or similarity to, at the cost of those who don’t.

The my-gang, my-posse feeling

The Affinity Bias or the In-group Bias or the “Mini-me”/ “Just-like-me” syndrome:

For example: Attending the same college, growing up in the same town, a reminder of ourselves or someone we know and like, can have a big impact during recruitment. Similarly, when a mentor/manager/leader chooses mentees/team members rather than choosing mini versions of themselves, they need to consciously bring their attention to and focus on required Skills & Competencies.

Favoritism that results from a similarity bias can give certain employees an unfair advantage over others during 360-degree feedback.

During brainstorming sessions, the ideas of team members who are not like the rest of the team are rejected.

We are more tolerant or more forgiving of people we like or who are similar to us. For instance, if we are good at attention to detail but not great at time management, we are more forgiving when someone is late however, have a very low tolerance for human error in data.

With trust and comfort comes greater positive regard and empathy for people like us, and this leaves people who are not like us outside our circle.

The opposite of comfort…

Look it’s understandably uncomfortable to know that we have a bias.

One of the reasons we might want to accept it is because, as humans, we do not have enough bandwidth to make every decision from ground zero. So, whether it’s consciously or unconsciously, we need and use this as a starting point to make sense of the world around us.

Working alongside people of different experiences and backgrounds creates a more innovative atmosphere that opens the door for creativity, productivity, and improved team performance.

Research has also shown that it makes us smarter, more empathetic (we anticipate other viewpoints), better listeners, and overall more productive.

Here are some things you can do at work:

  • Get out of your comfort zone, increase the diversity of your network
  • In a team meeting, make sure all voices are being heard
  • In talent decisions, look to ‘culture add’ rather than ‘culture fit’
  • Watch out for Group think, Echo chambers, Self-cloning
  • When you are in doubt, ask for help – preferably from someone not like yourself.

Also, here’s a little game that brings to the fore how diverse our circles of trust are. Download and save the excel sheet. We encourage you to play around with the heading Column C – Eg. 1: You could change it to ‘My team’. Eg. 2: If you are a hiring manager change it to ‘the last 5 people recruited’
– See how much of the rainbow remains :))