Unconscious Bias Interventions for Business: An Initial Test of WAGES-Business (Workshop Activity for Gender Equity Simulation) and Google's 're:Work' Trainings

Training employees about unconscious bias is gaining importance for employers, yet most trainings have not been evaluated and, to our knowledge, no theory-grounded interventions for business exist. We developed such an intervention for business, WAGES-Business. In Studies 1 and 2a, undergraduates (N = 216; N = 246) were randomly assigned to WAGES-Business, Google's "re:Work" training, or a control. Study 2a participants, contacted 7-14 days later for Study 2b (N = 126), responded to bias relevant and irrelevant vignettes. Across studies, participants in Google's training and WAGES-Business demonstrated greater acknowledgment and concern about unconscious bias relative to a control. Participants in WAGES-Business reported greater concern than participants in Google's training. WAGES-Business participants also had relatively greater knowledge of workplace gender equity issues postintervention, and demonstrated selectively greater recognition of bias and willingness to confront bias, relative to control, after 7-14 days. Both interventions yielded greater willingness to discuss and confront bias relative to control when interventions involved actively practicing these behaviors. Results suggest the importance of active practice and concern about bias, but not bias acknowledgment, for confronting intentions. Overall, findings underscore the need for intervention evaluation, suggest a distinction between bias acknowledgment and concern, and suggest WAGES-Business may be more promising for intervention than Google's training. Biographical information: KAITLIN MCCORMICK-HUHN is a Workplace Law Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She earned a dual-title PhD in Psychology (Social Psychology Area) and Women's Studies from The Pennsylvania State University in 2018. In her research, she examines interdisciplinary interventions to mitigate the effects of bias in workplaces and schools, gender stereotyped judgments of emotion, and methods to infuse intersectionality into psychology. LIZBETH M. KIM earned her dual-title PhD in Psychology (Social Psychology Area) and Women's Studies from The Pennsylvania State University in 2019. Her research explores contemporary prejudice reduction strategies with an emphasis on technology platforms and digitally mediated intergroup contact. She is currently working in the tech industry conducting marketing/consumer insights research for various companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before attending her graduate program, Lizbeth received her BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and worked in user experience research. STEPHANIE A. SHIELDS is a professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research is at the intersection of human emotion, gender, and feminist psychology. In addition to her WAGES project, her research focuses on the politics of emotion in everyday life, specifically, how representation of emotion (e.g., emotion language) is used to assert or challenge status and power. She also studies the social context of psychological research through the lens of the history of the psychology of women and gender. Awards include APA Division 35's Carolyn W. Sherif Award for contributions to the psychology of women as a scholar, teacher, mentor, and leader, and Division 1's Ernest R. Hilgard Lifetime Achievement Award for significant and long-lasting contributions to general psychology. Article Note: Present address: William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 451003, Las Vegas, NV 89154. We thank Hannah Bisbing, Marlana Quaill, Riley Hellings, Rachel Sorrentino, and Katrina Helfand for facilitating the experimental sessions. The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was conducted in accordance with the APA Code of Conduct and U.S. ethics gui elines and is not published or submitted elsewhere. Funds to develop materials were provided by The Pennsylvania State University. Associated data files, measures, and vignettes have been shared through the Open Science Framework and are available at: https://osf.io/pm8yx/. Google's training materials are publicly available online, and inquiries about the WAGES-Business intervention materials should be sent to the corresponding author. The research was not preregistered. Byline: Kaitlin McCormick-Huhn, Lizbeth M. Kim, Stephanie A. Shields