Take a look at any elementary school playground, and you’ll likely find that the boys want to play with the boys, and the girls want to play with the girls. While the fear of cooties eventually wears off, many people prefer same-gender friendships into adulthood. But a new study from the human resources firm Namely attempts to quantify the consequences for workplace equity of these kinds of inclinations.
According to the firm’s Workplace Diversity Report 2018, released in June, both men and women tend to praise colleagues of their own gender more frequently. And this alliance seems to continue further up the corporate ladder: The study also reports that both male and female managers supervise employees of their own gender more often than those of a different gender. (Namely used its database of information from 175,000 employees at 1,000 midsize companies to create its report, with the findings on workplace recognition derived from employees’ online notes of recognition for coworkers.)
This pattern of preference for the same gender can, at least in part, be explained by a psychological phenomenon known as “similar-to-me” bias. “You tend to hire and have people on your team who are similar to you,” says Namely chief client officer Debra Squyres. “On the surface, the actions you’re taking don’t appear to favor one group or another. But when you dig deeper, you realize that there’s an impact.”
Kristy Wallace, CEO of the Ellevate Network, an organization of female professionals, calls the tendency by another name — “mini-me syndrome.” When an individual meets someone with a similar personality or a common experience, such as attendance at the same college or a shared interest in a sport, they tend to connect more readily. “You can kind of see yourself in that person, so it lends an aspect of trust,” Wallace says. And this affinity can lead to a belief — perhaps subconscious — that a potential hire possesses the characteristics necessary to succeed.
“In-group bias” is yet another term, according to social psychologist Alice Eagly, author of The Psychology of Gender. “It implies that you identify with groups, and the group membership becomes part of your identity. And gender is, for most people, one of them. Race is usually one, religion is also one, your field of study may be one. You tend to favor people in groups with which you identify.”
The Namely study also suggests that managers are more likely to dole out raises and promotions to employees of their own gender, which would mean that having more females atop a company’s chain of command could have a profound effect on women’s opportunities for advancement.
“It can be frustrating and discouraging when you don’t see anyone within your organization that looks like you,” Wallace notes. “That’s women, that’s people of color. You do not see the potential for anyone like you to reach that level.”
In order to counter similar-to-me bias, Squyres suggests implementing a manager rotation program, in which “managers are intentionally moved to new teams to take on new responsibilities and bring more diversity to those teams.” And when it comes to equal recognition for workplace accomplishments, Squyres also encourages the use of “calibration sessions” when supervisors conduct performance reviews. “Having a peer group of managers ensures that they’re evaluating in the same way, so that ‘meets expectations’ is consistent across departments and across gender, ethnic or age lines.”
No matter what name is used—similar-to-me bias, mini-me syndrome, in-group bias—the research shows that gravitating toward the people who are similar to us is deeply ingrained. We feel comfortable with the people we see as kindred spirits — or, at the very least, somewhat like us. But, as Alice Eagly notes, “the purpose of work is not particularly to make managers comfortable, but to make the organizations work well.”
And confronting unconscious bias at the individual level is an essential part of making businesses more inclusive and diverse—and ultimately more successful.
