Stereotyping

Applying generalized beliefs about a group to individuals. The brain's compression algorithm — efficient but often wrong. In hiring: "Stanford grads are smart" functions as a useful prior until it overrides case-specific evidence. The candidate in front of you may be the exception. The stereotype doesn't care. Kahneman located stereotyping in System 1: fast, automatic, pattern-matching. Overcoming it requires System 2 — deliberate, evidence-seeking, slow. The tension is structural: stereotypes can be statistically accurate at the group level and unjust at the individual level. Base rates inform; they should not decide. The question is always whether you're using the base rate as a prior and updating with evidence, or letting the prior override the evidence entirely.

Amazon's Bar Raiser programme and structured interviews combat stereotyping by forcing evidence. Every candidate answers the same questions. Every interviewer scores against a rubric. The category — school, background, appearance — loses its monopoly on the verdict. The individual's actual performance enters the evaluation. The process feels mechanical. The outcomes are less biased. The mechanism is simple: structure slows the evaluation enough to move it from System 1 to System 2.

Bertrand and Mullainathan demonstrated the cost empirically in 2004. They sent identical resumes to employers, varying only the names — half received stereotypically white names (Emily, Greg), half received stereotypically Black names (Lakisha, Jamal). Resumes with white-sounding names received 50% more callbacks. The qualifications were identical. The compression algorithm — the stereotype activated by the name — changed the outcome before a single line of experience was read. The hiring managers did not believe they were discriminating. The stereotype operated upstream of intention.

The countermeasures exist and they work. Structured interviews — where every candidate answers the same questions in the same order, scored against a rubric — reduce the stereotype's influence by forcing evaluation on standardised criteria rather than gut-feel pattern matching. Blind resume review — stripping names, schools, and photos — removes the categorical triggers that activate the compression. Forced devil's advocates — assigning someone to argue against the prevailing assessment — surface the assumptions the stereotype installed silently. The interventions share a common design principle: they slow the evaluation process just enough to move it from System 1 (fast, automatic, stereotype-driven) to System 2 (deliberate, analytical, criteria-driven). The stereotype doesn't disappear. It loses its monopoly on the decision.