Contributed by: Sofia Kingsley – Project Assistant, Practicum
2. Addressing Bias and Misinformation in the Workplace and Beyond
Bias, both conscious and unconscious, emerged as a significant factor shaping workplace experiences and career advancement. Boparai and MacLean’s study on workplace investigations showed that credibility assessments are influenced by expectation congruency: participants rated complainants whose situations matched stereotypical roles (e.g., a superior accused of sexual harassment) as more credible (64%) than those whose cases were incongruent (59%). Interestingly, researchers found that racial identity did not significantly affect credibility ratings, but harassment type and workplace role did. This suggested that some biases may operate more on structural stereotypes than individual characteristics. As such, there may be a benefit of blinding details like names and roles early in investigations to reduce bias.
Professor Timothy Caulfield’s keynote addressed the “infodemic”- that is, the accelerating spread of misinformation on health and science, often amplified by social media algorithms that reward extreme and emotionally charged content. He emphasized that misinformation is a genuine public health crisis, affecting trust in science and policy. Caulfield highlighted that belief in conspiracy theories often fulfills needs for belonging and identity, explaining why simply providing facts may not suffice. Suggested approaches include media literacy education, empathetic dialogue, and supporting credible science communicators.
Complementing this, studies presented on social media’s impact revealed nuanced relationships with mental health and self-perception. For instance, Sadler found that social media use correlates with inattentive ADHD symptoms in adolescents, partially mediated by exposure to mental health content that can encourage self-diagnosis. Padda and colleagues showed that although doomscrolling did not significantly affect GPA, lower levels correlated with better psychological well-being, underscoring emotional costs associated with excessive negative content consumption.
Missed Part 1, read it here. Part 3 coming soon.
Did You Know?
Life Strategies has been involved with a number of independent research projects from conceptualization, data collection/analysis, and dissemination. You can see several of our research endeavors and partnerships profiled at Projects.
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