What Is Unconscious Bias?

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The idea is that we store a lot of information as a by product of growing up in a culture. The idea o sort of unintentional or unconscious bias, is that this can happen without us being aware of it. And it can conflict with our actual values. Like we might believe that we're people who treat others with fairness and justice and respect but because we've absorbed so many toxic ideas in our culture, we can react in ways that really conflict with those values.

Jessica Nordell is an award-winning author, science writer, and speaker known for blending rigorous science with compassionate humanity. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and many others. She is the recipient of a Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television, was named a Best New Poet by Tracy K. Smith, and was a 2022 featured speaker at SXSW.

In this episode, Eric and Jessica discuss her book, The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias.

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Jessica Nordell and I Discuss How to Overcome Unconscious Bias and…

Her book, The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias
What bias is and how prevalent it is
Her personal experience being on the receiving end of another person’s bias
Homophily
The implecations of prejudice being a habit and a result of conditioning
How labels and categorizing plant seeds of bias
Ways to lessen the impact of categories on our perspectives
Why being “color blind” can be so harmful to people (despite the well-meaning approach)
Taking on more and broader perspectives helps us better understand the world
Seeing the groups we don’t belong to as just as complex as our own group
The fundamental attribution error
The role of empathy in dissolving biases
Hyper-objects