The Impact of Bias in 360 Assessments: Common Pitfalls and How to Recognize Them

1. Halo Effect: The Dazzling Power of a Strength

The Halo Effect occurs when a single positive trait or behavior leads a rater to form an overall favorable impression of someone. 1

Example: If an employee excels in communication, a rater might overlook weaknesses in other areas, such as time management or leadership skills. This bias results in an overly positive assessment that doesn’t reflect the employee’s full range of abilities.

2. Leniency Bias: The Desire to Avoid Conflict

Leniency Bias happens when a rater consistently provides overly positive feedback, either out of a desire to avoid conflict or because they have a positive view of the individual. While this may seem like a way to encourage employees, it can prevent them from receiving constructive criticism that is necessary for growth. 1

Example: A peer gives their colleague consistently high ratings across all areas of performance, even though there are areas of improvement that could be addressed. This might happen because the peer fears that critical feedback might strain their working relationship or that highlighting weaknesses could harm the colleague’s career progression.

3. Recency Effect: Favoring Recent Events Over the Whole Picture

The Recency Effect refers to the tendency to give more weight to recent events or behaviors when evaluating someone. This bias can be particularly prominent if the rater has seen a recent performance improvement or failure, which can overshadow the employee’s overall performance over a longer period of time. 1

Example: A manager rates an employee highly based on a successful project completed in the last month but forgets about previous challenges or struggles that occurred earlier in the year.

Psychological Underpinnings and Impact on Results

These biases are driven by psychological factors such as memory recall limitations, emotional reactions and social influences. For example, the Halo Effect is a result of our tendency to use one characteristic as a shortcut to judge others, whereas Leniency Bias can be motivated by a desire to maintain positive relationships.

The effects of these biases can be diverse: When employees receive a distorted view of their strengths and weaknesses, it can impact both their personal development and the growth of the organization. Therefore, it is important to address these biases to ensure that the feedback remains accurate and the full value of 360-degree evaluations is realized. 2

How to Mitigate Bias and Promote Objective Feedback

Educating feedback providers about common biases, encouraging reflection and mindfulness when assessing others, is essential for fostering more balanced evaluations. Feel free to check out the article Strategies for Minimizing Subjectivity in 360 Feedback: Best Practices for Feedback Providers to learn what you can do to reduce subjectivity. At bluquist, we aim to empower organizations with tools that enhance the fairness and accuracy of 360-degree feedback. Our platform incorporates several key strategies to minimize bias and ensure constructive evaluations:

• Structured Questions: bluquist leverages customizable and thoughtfully designed questions to guide raters. This approach ensures the focus remains on specific, measurable behaviors rather than generalized impressions, reducing the impact of subjective judgments.
• Anonymous Feedback: By collecting feedback anonymously, our platform minimizes social pressures and fear of repercussions. This encourages raters to provide honest, unfiltered insights that are both candid and constructive.
• Calibration for Consistency: bluquist enables organizations to implement a structured calibration process. This involves reviewing and comparing feedback across raters to ensure that assessments are fair and aligned. 3

By integrating these best practices into your 360-degree assessments through bluquist, your organization can foster a culture of fairness, accuracy, and continuous growth.

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Sources

1. Bracken, D. W., Rose, D. S., & Church, A. H. (2016). The evolution and devolution of 360° feedback. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9(4), 761–794. https://doi.org/10.1017/IOP.2016.93
2. Furnham, A. (2019). Rater congruency: Why ratings of the same person differ. In A. H. Church, D. W. Bracken, J. W. Fleenor, & D. S. Rose (Eds.), The handbook of strategic 360 feedback (pp. 291–308). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190879860.003.0016
3. Bracken, D. W., & Rotolo, C. T. (2019). Can we improve rater performance? In A. H. Church, D. W. Bracken, J. W. Fleenor, & D. S. Rose (Eds.), The handbook of strategic 360 feedback (pp. 255–290). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190879860.003.0015