I read recently that we’re more likely to change our religious beliefs than we are our political ones.  It’s a finding that underlines the polarized nature of politics in much of the western world today.  A recent study from University College London suggests that this polarization is infecting the workplace, making us worse judges of talent.

The research found that when we know the political leaning of our colleagues, we tend to rely heavily on those with the same political identification as ourselves rather than relying on the skill level of the people in question.

“Our findings have implications for the spread of false news, for political polarisation and for social divisions. If we are aware of a person’s political leanings, for example on social media, we will be more likely to accept their take on a myriad of issues without scrutiny,” the researchers say.

Political bias

The researchers recruited around 100 volunteers to complete a number of tasks, after which they were told whether they were right or wrong.  They were also shown the answers of other players who had completed the same task.  The catch was that these other players were actually computer simulations that had been programmed to be either great or rubbish at the task.

Alongside each task, participants were also asked to answer a number of statements designed to determine their political orientation.  As well as being informed of their co players performance on the tasks, they were also told about their political leaning, which were of course predetermined by the researchers.

This was then followed by a second experiment where another task was asked of the volunteers, but unlike the first task, they had the option of looking at the answers of their ‘colleagues’ before submitting their own answer.  Logic would suggest that people would look to those who had shown a clear aptitude for the task, even if their political views were opposed, but that wasn’t what emerged.

“When we examined participants’ impressions of the co-players we found they overestimated how good the politically like-minded were at the shape categorisation task. This misperception drove the participants to seek advice from the politically like-minded,” the authors explain.

It’s a form of halo effect, whereby we take positive, yet unrelated characteristics and assume that they benefit an individual in the domain we’re interested in.  The researchers believe that their findings could have profound real-world implications, especially with the polarized times we live in today.

Might we be discounting (or inflating) the talents of liberals or conservatives, just because they happen to hold certain political beliefs that have nothing to do with the task at hand?  It may be something to keep in mind when assessing talent in your own organization.