Do we all show some unconscious bias?

Essentially, unconscious bias is about people making quick judgement, or stereotyping, without realising we are doing it.

It made me think of a situation I had experienced wherein I had gone into a shop looking for a spirit level when I was tiling my bathroom.  On approaching the customer service counter and waiting for the two male employees to finish their conversation, I asked them to direct me to the spirit levels.

One of the men turned to me and said “Do you mean White Spirit, or a spirit level?”…Mmmm, I wasn’t too sure how to answer that politely.

Instead, I replied “Unless your particular type of White Spirit can ensure something is level, then no”.  He immediately got up, stopped judging me and directed me to the correct aisle.

This form of unconscious bias was completely aimed at his perception that only a man could know what a spirit level was.  It is not intentional; it is merely about our brains pattern matching a certain perception of people.

However, I did not like to say to him that, when looking at the spirit levels, I had no clue what the difference was between them and so I bought the most colourful