Learn about affinity bias

You’ll need

Scrap paper
Sticky tape
Pens or pencils
Coloured paper

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

Prepare tags or stickers for everyone. You could make your own by cutting shapes out of coloured paper or you could use stickers. The tags should be a mix of colours, shapes, patterns and sizes. For example, you may have a few purple tags but they may be circles, squares, and triangles and square, spotty, and stripy.
Make sure you’re ready to talk about affinity bias and what it is. It’s a good idea to do this before your session so you feel prepared to lead a discussion. It’s important not to tell the people taking part in the activity that it’s about affinity bias until you’re ready to put it all together.
If you want some extra support or information for discussing Black History Month with young people, take a look at our advice and resources for talking about Black History Month.

Running this activity

The tag game

Gather everyone together and explain you’re going to play a game.
Give everyone their own tag. Ask people to stick their tag to their top, between their waist and their shoulders.
Ask everyone to move around the space. They could walk, run, hop, skip or jump.
After a few minutes, ask everyone to get into small groups without talking.
Now, try to make a note of how everyone splits themselves into groups. Did they look at their tags and organise themselves by colour or shape?
Everyone should then continue to move around the space.
After a minute or two, ask everyone to get into small group again. Again, make a note of how people split themselves into groups. Do they go back to the same group?
Keep repeating this, so everyone should move around the space, then making several groups without talking.
Once you've made groups a few times, people should gather in a large circle.
Ask everyone how they decided on how to split up into their groups. They may have used the tags, the people they were near, their friends or something else.

The circle of trust

Next, set out some paper and pens in a large circle.
Everyone should choose a spot by a pen and piece of paper.
Ask people to write the initials of up to 10 people that they trust the most down the left side of the paper. They can't include family members.
Now, name a diversity characteristic, such as gender, age, race, religion or ethnicity.
Everyone should put a tick next to the people on their list who share that characteristic with themselves. For example, if it’s ‘age’, people should tick the people on their list who identify as the same age as themselves.
Repeat steps four and five with other diversity characteristics.
Everyone should look at their list of people. Ask people to think about how many characteristics they share with their trusted people and which characteristic do they share with the most of their list. Ask if there are any people on their list who only have one or two ticks.

Put it all together

Ask people to think of some ways that people are the same. For example, they all have bodies, all need energy to keep going, and so on.
Now, ask them think of some ways that people are different. For example, they have different backgrounds, likes and dislikes, and dreams and ambitions.
Explain that everyone in the world shares the same human experience, which means we all go through feelings and situations like happiness, sadness, love, and friendship.
But, while we are all unique, we often find that we have more in common with some people than with others. This could be shared interests, hobbies, or experiences. These connections help us form friendships and build communities, reminding us that even though we are different, we can relate to and understand each other in special ways.
Everyone should think back to the first game. How did they split into groups? Some people probably relied on similarities between their tags. Similarly, it’s likely that everyone’s trusted people list was filled with people like them.
Tell everyone that affinity bias is when people tend to like or prefer others who are similar to them, such as having the same skin colour, interests, or backgrounds. Ask everyone why this might be a problem.
Explain that affinity bias can sometimes create unfair situations. Some examples are:
- If hiring decisions at a company are made mostly by men, they might favour male candidates, meaning equally qualified women to miss out on job opportunities.
- If a company’s leadership team is predominantly from one ethnic background, they might unintentionally favour candidates from that background during hiring, which can lead to a lack of diversity and limit the unique perspectives and talents of applicants from other ethnic groups.
- If older adults are the main volunteers for a community event, they might overlook younger volunteers with fresh ideas, making it hard for them to feel included.
- If a school project team only picks friends, they might miss out on other students with great ideas, preventing those students from contributing and shining.
- If a group of students organising an event mainly consists of those without disabilities, they might unintentionally overlook the needs of classmates with disabilities, excluding them from participating in activities that could be adapted.
Explain that when we only hang out with people who are like us, we miss out on the chance to make friends with others who might have different experiences and stories. Everyone has something valuable to share, and by listening to and befriending those who are different, we can learn so much more about the world and enrich our own lives.

When we gravitate towards people who’re like us, it’s called affinity bias.

It’s in our human nature to tend to enjoy spending time with or agree more with others who are similar to us. They may share our values and beliefs or have thoughts and opinions that align with ours. Having these things in common makes us feel more comfortable.

Our feelings for someone may only be based on nothing more than their age, where they live, their job, their opinions, or even the films they like and music they listen to. We may like or agree with someone simply because we believe or know that they like or agree with us, too.

Affinity bias can lead us to make or form decisions about people, things, our opinions and events based on feelings alone, without taking a moment to think rationally. However, if we stopped and thought about it, there’s usually no logical reason for our decision.

But, there’s a limit to the principle of affinity bias. It can turn into discrimination.

Affinity bias is a learned behaviour, and it can reach extremes, which can lead to people becoming racist, homophobic or sexist. This happens when the people with who a person identifies with need to be of a specific race, ability, sexuality or gender – often the same as them.

This happens when a person feels so strongly about their beliefs and opinions that they become too attached to people who’re like them. Anyone who’s different with them evokes a strong negative response. The person refuses to interact or associate with those who aren’t like them or who don’t think in the same way as they do.

People may automatically look at people who are different or think differently than they do as ignorant or even as unintelligent. Affinity bias can cause us to ignore facts and evidence, too.

One way that affinity bias is most obvious is in the hiring process. Often, managers say that they would hire a less-qualified candidate if they liked them.

Our brains make quick decisions based on feelings, but when we’re assessing potential employees for an important position, emotions and feelings need to be taken out of the process. Instead of looking for someone they like, the hirer needs to look for someone who has the most relevant skills and/or experience, and who can do their job well.

The way out of affinity bias is to try our best to look at all aspects of an issue before deciding. Even if we believe that one person’s point of view is clearly right, we need to listen to and give others a chance to voice their opinions.

By making ourselves aware of how our affinity with others can affect our thoughts and behaviour in relation to other people, we can work to minimise its impact. We can then make more inclusive choices when it comes to important issues and people.

Affinity bias is often linked to complicit bias and expectation bis. Complicit bias happens if you detect bias in another person or situation and you don't do anything about it. Expectation bias occurs when someone hears or sees something that they expect to hear or see, rather than what may be occurring.

Reflection

This activity helped to introduce the concept of diversity and affinity bias (one type of unconscious bias). Were people surprised to hear about affinity bias? How did they feel when they looked back on their groups in the tag game and their list of trusted people? What are some of the benefits and challenges of working in groups with people who are similar or different?

Everyone should think about some of the groups they’re part of, for example, a class at school, a sports team, or a friendship group. Are these groups full of people who are similar or different to themselves? Everyone should get into pairs and chat about how they could learn more about diversity in their everyday lives and interactions. People could take it in turns to share their ideas if they want to.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Active games: The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.