Neuroscience-based Strategies to Reduce Prejudice and Stereotypes
- On-Demand, Asynchronous Learning
- 30 Minute Video + Activities
- Summary Handouts
- Activity Workbook
Do you know how prejudice, stereotypes, and bias work in the brain? In this on-demand webinar, “Unraveling Bias in the Brain,” you’ll explore how your brain can work against your best intentions and what you can do to be more kind and inclusive.
Everyone has a brain and everyone has bias. If we use our brains to understand and combat unconscious bias, we can create a more inclusive and just world.
In this course, you will:
- Review some of the barriers to an inclusive and just world.
- Outline 14 key terms to add to or reinforce your vocabulary.
- Examine 8 neural mechanisms in our brains that support prejudice and stereotypes, the underlying functions of bias.
- Identify 9 self-regulation strategies to reduce prejudice and stereotypes.
Together, let’s unravel the bias in our brains.
Download the Handout
The provided packet accompanies our in-person version of this curriculum. You may find it helpful, however, in your self-paced journey through the content.Â
For your convenience, the available PDF is a fillable form and includes the following:Â
- Summary of Strategies
- List of Key Terms
- Space for Notes: 8 Neural Mechanisms of the BrainÂ
- Activity 1: Barriers to an Inclusive and Just World
- Activity 2: Examine Your Fear Conditioning
- Activity 3: Practicing Empathy
- Activity 4: Lens Evaluation
- Activity 5: Make a Reading List
- Activity 6: Single Stories
- Activity 7: Implicit Association Test
Warm-up Exercise
Before you dive into the content, take a few minutes to reflect and prepare for the webinar.Â
Reflection Questions
In your own notebook, reflect on the following questions:
- What do you already know about bias and how it functions in our brains?
- What are you interested in understanding about bias and how it functions in our brains?Â
- What do you hope to gain out of this learning experience?Â
Key Terms
The webinar highlights 15 key terms. Review the terms below and download the handout.Â
Review the terms below and download the handout.Â
(in order of appearance in the webinar)
Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people.
Oppression is the combination of prejudice and power which creates a system that discriminates against some groups and benefits other groups. There are four types of oppression: ideological, interpersonal, institutional, and internalized.Â
Systems of Oppression enable dominant groups to exert control over non-dominant groups by limiting their rights, freedom, and access to basic resources such as health care, education, employment, and housing.Â
Stereotypes are a widely held but fixed, oversimplified, and generalized image or idea of a particular type of person or thing, including personal traits or circumstantial attributes.
Marginalization is the treatment of a person, group, or concept as insignificant or peripheral.Â
Marginalized groups refer to individuals who are consistently confined to the lower or peripheral edges of society or groups because they are commonly seen as different from perceived norms and dominant cultures. They often experience disadvantage and discrimination that stem from systemic social inequalities and injustices.
Micromessages are small, subtle, unconscious messages that are sent and received when communicating with others.Â
Implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect one’s understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.
Implicit prejudice is in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.
Self-regulation is the ability to manage one’s behaviors, including the ability to set specific goals and to use appropriate strategies to attain those goals. Or it is the process of acting in an intentional manner, often through mechanisms of cognitive control.
Fear conditioning refers to the pairing of an initially neutral stimulus, such as light, a tone, symbol, or color, with an aversive fear eliciting stimulus. The conditioned fear response is described in terms of emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Mentalizing is the process of considering a person’s unique perspective and motives.Â
Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities, and the literal stripping of human attributes with an animal or object association.Â
Webinar
In this 30-minute recorded webinar, you will learn neuroscience-based strategies to reduce prejudice and stereotypes.Â
In this webinar, you will:
- Review some of the barriers to an inclusive and just world.
- Outline 14 key terms to add to or reinforce your vocabulary.
- Examine 8 neural mechanisms in our brains that support prejudice and stereotypes, the underlying functions of bias.
- Identify 9 self-regulation strategies to reduce prejudice and stereotypes.
The recorded webinar is 30 minutes in length and is dense with vocabulary, content, and strategies. Feel free to listen to the webinar in chunks, and download the transcript at the end of this lesson if it will help you follow along. The following is a rough outline of what to expect in the recording:
- Start – 1:56 // Introduction and overview
- 1:57 – 6:19 // This section frames the conversation by answering the question:Â What are the barriers to an inclusive and just world?Â
- 6:20 – 8:10 Â // Introduction to the neuroscience section
- 8:11 – Â 13:19 // Amygdala + fear conditioningÂ
- 13:20 – 16:18 // Insula + empathy
- 16:19 – 20:19 // Striatum, orbitalfrontal cortex, inferior ventral medial prefrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex + mentalizing + dehumanization + lens
- 20:20 – 22:29 // Temporal Lobe + challenge stereotypes
- 22:30 – 23:30 // Anterior Cingulate Cortex + implicit bias
- 23:31 – end // Recap of strategies and conclusion
Webinar Transcript
The transcript is provided for your convenience, though it may vary slightly from the recorded webinar.Â
Strategies
The webinar includes nine actionable strategies. Review the strategies below, and download the PDF for future reference.Â
Know Your Brain
The brain supports the learning, experience, and expression of prejudice, and the storage, activation, and behavioral expression of social stereotypes. These are the neural mechanisms of social cognition that underlie forms of bias. So, if you have a brain, you hold prejudice, bias, and stereotypes. Recognization of this truth can help diminish some of the discomforts that come with the realization that we all have these things. The good news is that networks in the brain also support the self-regulation of cognitive control, which can reduce the expression of prejudice and stereotypes.
Examine Your Fear ConditioningÂ
Fear conditioning is a mechanism underlying implicit prejudice. It is a learned threat response (Emotional, behavioral, and physiological) to outgroups or people who are different than you. Â In what circumstances do you experience behavioral freezing, anxiety, and heightened vigilance? Can you rationalize this fear conditioning based on your own experiences?
Practice Empathy to Drive Connection
It can be easy to jump to conclusions about people. Because of how our brain works, we are prone to assign stereotypes attributing the causality of events. Most of the time, we don’t know the whole story. When you find yourself doing this, ask yourself, “What else might be true?” Try to think of five different explanations rather than the immediate one likely based on prejudice, stereotypes, and bias. When possible, ask and don’t assume. This practice can help you to understand others, or in the least, not assume the worst. Empathy is a skill that can bring people together and make people feel included.Â
Watch, Read, and LearnÂ
To increase empathy and to expand our world-view, we must learn more about other people, cultures, and ways of knowing and doing. Watch films, read books, and attend talks that will help you expand your knowledge of others.Â
Check out Engineer Inclusion’s Read and Watch List
Stop Dehumanizing Others
Dehumanization starts with language and can lead us to place stigmatized groups placed outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply. We must consider how stereotypes, prejudice, and bias affects how we see and engage with others. Examine how you’ve perhaps unintentionally stopped seeing groups of humans as humans.
Change Your Lens
If mentalizing is the process of considering a person’s unique perspective and motives, how could your lens affect your assessment of others? Does a narrow world view cloud your lens? Is your lens out of focus to the humanity of others? Is your lens one of empathy and kindness? Evaluate the state of your lens and make a plan to adjust it accordingly. Â
Actively Challenge Stereotypes
Stereotypes reinforce the marginalization and oppression of others. We must actively challenge stereotypes, dispel myths, and provide more authentic stories of individuals. Â
Identify Your Implicit Biases
You can take implicit association tests to help you identify your unconscious biases (implicit.harvard.edu). The control of implicit bias requires the detection of a conflict between a biased tendency and one’s goal to act without bias. So, first, you must decide that you don’t want to be biased, then increase awareness of how prejudice and stereotypes manifest in your interactions with others, and finally, take action to change this behavior. Â
Silence is Complicity
By not saying anything, by not standing up for those who are marginalized and oppressed, we become complicit in their oppression.
Reflection & Action Planning
Take time to reflect on what you learned and make a plan for action. This lesson provides questions to guide you.
Reflection Questions
- What are your top three takeaways?Â
- What did you learn that challenged what you previously thought?
- What do you still want to know? (How will you find those answers?)
Action Planning Questions
- Which of the 15 key terms would you like to learn more about, and what is your plan for doing so?
- Networks in the brain support the self-regulation of cognitive control, which can help us reduce the expression of prejudice and stereotypes. What are three ways you will practice self-regulation when it comes to not activating the prejudice and stereotypes in your brain?Â
- Which of the 9 strategies were most meaningful to you and why? What is your plan for implementing these strategies?Â
Discussion
Share what you learned and engage with others who are learning alongside you.Â
Discussion questions
- What questions do you have based on what you learned?
- What else would you like to add to help others who are learning with you?Â
- Do you have any complimentary resources that would add value to the community?Â
- Share results from your action plan. What did you try? What did you learn from that experience?
