Pragya Agarwal: When does bias become prejudice?

No matter how open-minded we consider ourselves to be, all of us hold biases towards other people.

Dr Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, ex-academic, and a freelance writer and journalist, who runs a research gender equality think tank The 50 Percent Project.

Her new book, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias (£16.99, Bloomsbury Sigma), unravels the way our implicit or 'unintentional' biases affect the way we communicate and perceive the world, and how they affect our decision-making, even in life and death situations.

In this week’s podcast, she explains where these biases come from and why it’s important for us to recognise and unlearn them to help make the world a better, fairer place.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

• Adam Rutherford: Can science ever be rid of racism?
• Angela Saini: Is racism creeping into science?
• Robert Elliott Smith: Are algorithms inherently biased?
• Caroline Criado Perez: Does data discriminate against women?
• Marcel Danesi: Why do we want to believe lies?
• Camilla Pang: How can science guide my life?

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