Follow the Science: Proven Strategies for Reducing Unconscious Bias

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Follow the Science: Proven Strategies

for Reducing Unconscious Bias

By David Hoffman* and Helen Winter**

BSTRACT

Mediators, arbitrators, and lawyers have a duty to be unbiased,

and yet they—like others in society—are influenced by uncon-

scious biases. Social psychologists have explored the origins of

these biases and, in recent years, developed experimental tech-

niques for reducing unconscious bias. This article surveys the

social psychology literature regarding such techniques and iden-

tifies seven main categories of promising interventions: aware-

ness, motivation, individuation, perspective-taking, contact,

stereotype replacement, and mindfulness. The article suggests

several real-world applications of these techniques to address

both individual and systemic biases and concludes with a

description of some unanswered questions regarding bias reduc-

tion strategies.

ABLE OF

ONTENTS

I. Introduction .......................................... 2

A. What is “Unconscious Bias”? ...................... 3

B. Individual Bias vs. Systemic Barriers ............. 5

C. Overview of this Article .......................... 5

II. Challenges ........................................... 6

A. Complexity of Research ........................... 6

B. Measuring Bias ................................... 7

C. Denial or Resistance .............................. 9

D. Managing the Challenges ......................... 10

III. Summary of Research ................................ 11

* David A. Hoffman is a mediator, arbitrator, attorney and founding member of

Boston Law Collaborative, LLC. He teaches courses on mediation, diversity, and le-

gal ethics at Harvard Law School, where he is the John H. Watson, Jr. Lecturer on

Law.

** Helen Winter is a mediator, lawyer and founder of a German peer mediation

program, R3solute; she is also a Graduate Research Fellow at the Program on Negoti-

ation at Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. candidate at the European University

Viadrina in Frankfurt, Germany.

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A. Raising Awareness of Bias and the Impacts of

Bias .............................................. 13

B. Increasing Motivation to Counteract Bias ......... 16

C. Encouraging Individuation ........................ 18

D. Fostering Perspective-Taking and Empathy ....... 20

E. Increasing Contact with ‘Outgroup’ Members ..... 23

F. Stereotype Negation / Replacement ............... 28

G. Mindfulness ...................................... 32

H. Combining Strategies ............................. 34

I. Assessment ....................................... 36

IV. Practical Applications ................................ 38

A. Individual Action ................................. 39

B. Institutional Action ............................... 49

C. Techniques for Counteracting the Impacts of

Bias .............................................. 53

V. Unanswered Questions ............................... 56

A. Intersectionality .................................. 56

B. Mind-Body Connections ........................... 57

C. Understanding the Neuroscience of Bias .......... 57

D. Bias Malleability as a Function of Age ............ 58

E. “Sedative” Effects ................................. 60

F. Societal Forces ................................... 60

VI. Conclusion ........................................... 62

I. I

NTRODUCTION

Imagine that you are appearing before a judge and your fate is in

their hands. Will the outcome be affected by your race? Statistical

research suggests that in criminal proceedings, the more Afrocentric

your facial features are, the harsher the sentence.

What if you need medical treatment? Could your race or your

gender affect the care you receive? Again, multiple studies show that

the answer is yes.

See generally

Irene V. Blair et al.,

The Influence of Afrocentric Facial Features

in Criminal Sentencing

, 10 P

SYCH

. S

. 674, 674 (2004); M. Marit Rehavi & Sonja B.

Starr,

Racial Disparity in Federal Criminal Sentences

, 122 J. P

. E

CON

. 1320 (2014).

See generally

Alexander R. Green et al.,

Implicit Bias among Physicians and

its Prediction of Thrombolysis Decisions for Black and White Patients

, 9 J. G

. I

N-

TERN

. M

. 1231 (2007); Elizabeth N. Chapman et al.,

Physicians and Implicit Bias:

How Doctors May Unwittingly Perpetuate Health Care Disparities

, 28 J. G

. I

NTER-

NAL

. 1504 (2013).

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You’re applying for a job. Will your race and gender, as indicated

on your resume, affect your chances of getting an interview? Once

again, the answer is yes, based on numerous studies.

If you are looking for an apartment to rent, will your race affect

your likelihood of finding one? Abundant research shows that the an-

swer is yes.

Finally, imagine you are buying a car. Are you likely to be of-

fered a better deal if you are White and male as opposed to Black and

female? A controlled experiment shows that the answer is yes.

What if you asked the judge, doctor, employer, landlord, and car

salesperson if they are biased? We believe that each of them would

most likely say “absolutely not!” and mean it. Yet, the studies cited

above suggest otherwise. These studies, and others like them,

demonstrate that unconscious biases are ubiquitous in our society

and have pernicious effects.

What is “Unconscious Bias”?

The term “unconscious bias” (or “implicit bias”) refers to a set of

attitudes and stereotypes—whether positive or negative—that we

are unaware of.

This article will focus primarily on negative biases,

such as those that result in discriminatory treatment of the kind de-

scribed above.

Some of these biases may be diametrically opposite of

See generally

Lincoln Quillian et al.,

Evidence from Field Experiments in Hir-

ing Shows Substantial Additional Racial Discrimination after the Callback

, 99 S

ORCES

732, 732 (2020); Corinna A. Moss-Racusin et al.,

Science Faculty’s Subtle Gen-

der Biases Favor Male Students

, 109 P

SYCH

. & C

OGNITIVE

CIS

. 16474 (2012); Patrick

M. Kline et al.,

Systemic Discrimination Among Large U.S. Employers

, 137 Q.J.

CON

. 1963 (2022).

See generally

Jacob William Farber & Marie-Dumesle Mercier,

Multidimen-

sional Discrimination in the Online Rental Housing Market: Implications for Families

with Young Children,

OUS

. P

’

EBATE

(Jan. 24, 2022); Margery Austin Turner et

al.,

Housing Discrimination Against Racial Ethnic Minorities 2021,

U.S. Dept. of

Hous. & Urb. Dev., Off. of Pol’y Dev. & Rsch. (2013).

See generally

Ian Ayres,

Fair Driving: Gender and Race Discrimination in

Retail Car Negotiations

, 104 H

ARV

. L. R

. 817 (1991).

See generally

Barbara A. Reskin,

Unconsciousness Raising: The Pernicious

Effects of Unconscious Bias,

. R

SRV

. B

ANK

. R

’

. 33-37 (2005) (citing

examples), http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/nerr/rr2005/q1/section3a.pdf,

archived

https://perma.cc/AN7T-X779

See generally

Jerry Kang,

Implicit Bias: A Primer for Courts

, N

’

FOR

TATE

. (August 2009).

8. “Positive” biases, sometimes called a “halo effect,” may be either welcome

(

see, e.g.,

Michael G. Efran,

The Effect of Physical Appearance on the Judgment of

Guilt, Interpersonal Attraction, and Severity of Recommended Punishment in a Simu-

lated Jury Task

, 8 J. R

SCH

. P

ERSONALITY

45, 51 (1974) (physically attractive criminal

defendants more positively evaluated than unattractive ones)) or unwelcome (

see, e.g.,

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our conscious views but nevertheless affect our behavior. Although

explicit

bias—i.e., conscious attitudes and stereotypes—is also impor-

tant and correlates with biased behavior, implicit bias is an even

more robust predictor of discriminatory behavior.

Researchers have found that our biases develop early in our

lives. One study found that infants aged six to nine months have a

preference for people of their own race and a bias against people of

other races.

There are several theories as to what causes these

preferences and biases. Some contend that implicit bias is driven pri-

marily by ingroup favoritism rather than outgroup animus or aver-

sion.

Other researchers contend that a major contributing factor is

“status-quo bias”—a mental preference for the existing order—and

those studies are supported by findings that people from historically

marginalized groups favor ingroup members to a greater extent than

ingroup members favor those from the outgroup.

And, of course,

there is abundant support for the view that a barrage of negative

messages received by children (and adults) regarding outgroup mem-

bers shape both conscious beliefs and unconscious attitudes.

This article does not seek to determine the extent to which each

of the factors described above, among others, may contribute to the

problem of implicit bias.

Instead, our focus is on the effectiveness of

bias-reduction strategies.

Lisa Kiang et. al.,

Moving Beyond the Model Minority

, 8 A

SIAN

. J. P

SYCH

. 1, 2–3

(2017) (“model minority image” can be damaging because of inaccuracy, pressure to

achieve, reinforcing racial stratification, and discomfort with being “pigeon-holed”)).

See

URTIS

ARDIN

& M

AHZARIN

R. B

ANAJI

The Nature of Implicit Prejudice:

Implications for Personal and Public Policy

, in T

EHAVIORAL

OUNDATIONS OF

UBLIC

OLICY

10 (E. Shafir, ed. 2010) (“implicit measures generally predict behavior

better than explicit measures”).

10.

See, e.g.,

University of Toronto,

Infants Show Racial Bias Toward Members of

Own Ethnicity, Against Those of Others

, S

. D

AILY

(April 11, 2017), https://

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170411130810.htm,

archived at

https://

perma.cc/5Y92-UQU9.

11.

See generally

Anthony Greenwald & Thomas Pettigrew,

With Malice Toward

None and Charity for Some: Ingroup Favoritism Enables Discrimination

, 69 A

SYCH

. 669 (2014).

12.

See

OHN

T. J

OST

, A T

HEORY OF

YSTEM

USTIFICATION

79-81 (2020).

13.

See

Srividya Ramasubramanian,

Intergroup Contact, Media Exposure, and

Racial Attitudes

, 42 J. I

NTERCULTURAL

OMMC

’

SCH

. 54, 56 (2013).

14. It seems reasonable to believe that individuals and cultures may vary consid-

erably insofar as the relative impact of those causative factors is concerned.

15. We anticipate that in the years ahead, further research into the causes of

implicit bias will provide further guidance on the most effective bias-reduction

strategies.

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Individual Bias vs. Systemic Barriers

Efforts to end invidious discrimination often confront two issues:

individual biases and systemic barriers. The two obstacles are re-

lated: the exclusion of historically marginalized groups caused by

structural barriers can reinforce individuals’ biases against those

groups, and such biases reduce the motivation to remove those barri-

ers, or even to examine them.

In our view, the reduction of individuals’ biases is not a substi-

tute for concerted action to eliminate structural barriers. Instead, we

view bias-reduction strategies as supportive of, and synergistic with,

campaigns to break down structural barriers. For example, in work-

places where women and people of color are under-represented in

management, efforts to reduce explicit and implicit racial and gender

bias can help break down obstacles to promotion, but they are not a

substitute for creating structures of accountability to make compa-

nies and organizations responsible for achieving greater diversity, eq-

uity, and inclusion in the ranks of management.

Overview of this Article

As lawyers and dispute resolution professionals, our initial goal

in writing this article was to provide a “user’s guide” to the bur-

geoning research on bias reduction for our fellow attorneys and dis-

pute resolvers. Attorneys have a professional duty of non-

discrimination,

and dispute resolution professionals (e.g.,

mediators and arbitrators) have a duty to be impartial.

An impor-

tant component of both of these duties is to try to identify—and

counteract—unconscious bias. However, once we began delving into

the broad expanse of bias-reduction research, we did not want to limit

the focus of our endeavor to dispute resolution or law practice. Re-

ducing unconscious bias should, in our opinion, be a goal of all in our

society. Many of the injustices in our world today—a few of which

16.

See

ODEL

ULES OF

. C

ONDUCT

Rule 8.4(g) (A

. B

’

2020) (“It is

unprofessional conduct for a lawyer to . . . engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or

reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex,

religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity,

marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.”).

17.

See

ODEL

TANDARDS OF

ONDUCT FOR

EDIATORS

Standard II(A) (A

. A

’

2005) (“A mediator shall decline a mediation if the mediator cannot conduct it

in an impartial manner. Impartiality means freedom from favoritism, bias or

prejudice.”); C

ODE OF

THICS FOR

RBITRATORS

Canon I(B) (A

. A

’

2004)

(“One should accept appointment as an arbitrator only if fully satisfied: (1) that he or

she can serve impartially . . .”).

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are described in the opening section of this article—are fostered, rein-

forced, and perpetuated by unconscious biases.

Part II of this Article describes some of the challenges that con-

front researchers seeking to identify and counteract unconscious

biases.

Part III reviews the major bias-reduction strategies that re-

searchers have tested in laboratory and field experiments. We also

describe the meta-analytic research assessing the effectiveness of

these strategies.

Part IV suggests a variety of practical applications of this re-

search for individuals and organizations.

Finally, Part V poses a number of unanswered questions that, in

our view, deserve the attention of researchers seeking to improve

bias-reduction strategies.

II. C

HALLENGES

Complexity of Research

One of the biggest challenges for individuals and organizations

seeking to reduce implicit bias is the sheer volume and methodologi-

cal complexity of research in this area.

This may overwhelm or even

deter the lay reader from in-depth exploration. Some studies focus on

the origins of bias, others on the measurement of bias, and still

others on methods for counteracting bias. Many of the studies pro-

duce conflicting findings, such as on the effectiveness of diversity

training.

Some of the research involves small cohorts of experimen-

tal subjects, and other studies are meta-analyses in which results

from thousands of experimental subjects are analyzed. Some of the

studies examine the impact of bias-reduction strategies longitudi-

nally (to see how long a strategy will work), while the majority ex-

amine only the effects of an intervention shortly afterwards and often

only once. This article attempts (in Part III) to cull from that varied

body of research the most promising ideas regarding bias-reduction

18.

See

Elizabeth Levy Paluck & Donald P. Green,

Prejudice Reduction: What

Works? A Review and Assessment of Research and Practice

, 60 A

. R

. P

SYCH

. 339,

340 (2009) (“By many standards, the psychological literature on prejudice ranks

among the most impressive in all of social science. The sheer volume of scholarship is

remarkable, reflecting decades of active scholarly investigation . . . .”).

19.

Compare

Frank Dobbin & Alexandra Kalev,

Why Doesn’t Diversity Training

Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia

, 10 A

NTHROPOLOGY

48 (Oct. 27,

2018),

with

OYIN

TEWOLOGUN ET AL

., E

QUAL

AND

UMAN

IGHTS

OMM

’

SCH

NCONSCIOUS

IAS

RAINING

: A

SSESSMENT OF THE

VIDENCE FOR

FFECTIVENESS

(2018).

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and to suggest (in Part IV) how those ideas might be used by individ-

uals and organizations.

Measuring Bias

Social psychologists use a variety of self-reporting tools to mea-

sure

explicit

bias, some of which pose direct questions while others

use indirect questions in order to blunt the skewing of results that

may be caused by social-desirability concerns of research partici-

pants.

However, measuring

implicit

bias is challenging because

the participants’ attitudes are, by definition, not consciously availa-

ble to the participants.

One way to measure unconscious bias is to examine—with the

help of functional MRI (“fMRI”) technology—the activation of differ-

ent parts of the brain when presented with stimuli. In one such

study, White subjects were shown photographic images of Black faces

and White faces, and the MRI recorded the subjects’ reactions. When

the images were only 30 milliseconds and therefore subliminal (i.e.,

shown so fleetingly that the subjects were not aware that they had

seen a photograph), there was increased amygdala activation when

the subjects saw Black faces as opposed to White faces, suggesting a

fear response. However, when the images appeared for half a sec-

ond—long enough for the images to consciously register—there was

increased frontal cortex activation and less activation of the amyg-

dala, suggesting that the brain’s logic circuits were processing the in-

formation and therefore suppressing the amygdala’s fight-or-flight

response.

The most widely used tool for measuring unconscious bias is the

Implicit Association Test (“IAT”). Created by Professors Mahzarin

Banaji and Anthony Greenwald and available to the public for free on

a website maintained by Harvard University,

the IAT measures the

strength of unconscious associations by calculating the speed of par-

ticipants’ responses to various stimuli.

For example, participants

20.

See

Jordan R. Axt,

The Best Way to Measure Explicit Racial Attitudes is to

Ask About Them

, 9 S

. P

SYCH

. & P

ERSONALITY

. 896, 896–97 (2018).

21.

See

William A. Cunningham et al.,

Separable Neural Components in the

Processing of Black and White Faces

, 15 P

SYCH

. S

. 806, 808–811 (2004); Elizabeth A.

Phelps et al.,

Performance on Indirect Measures of Race Evaluation Predicts Amyg-

dala Activation

, 12 J. C

OGNITIVE

EUROSCI

. 729, 734 (2000) (results suggest that

amygdala and behavioral responses to Black-versus-White faces in White subjects re-

flect cultural evaluations).

22. www.implicit.harvard.edu,

archived at

https://perma.cc/3UGE-BPK5.

23.

See generally

AHZARIN

R. B

ANAJI

& A

NTHONY

G. G

REENWALD

, B

LINDSPOT

IDDEN

IASES OF

OOD

EOPLE

(2013).

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might be shown images of faces (say, Black and White faces) and

asked to match the faces with the words “good” or “bad,” or “pleasant”

or “unpleasant.” For a majority of White participants, it takes longer

to comply with the instruction to pair the Black face with the word

“good,” and it takes less time to pair the White face with the word

“good.” The IAT website has tests for race, gender, age, religion, ap-

pearance, and many other characteristics.

Use of the IAT has been controversial because of its limited “test-

retest reliability”: results for an individual can vary from one test ad-

ministration to the next.

Another area of imprecision is the “predic-

tive validity” of the IAT—the extent to which an unconscious bias

shown on the IAT correlates with explicit bias or biased behavior.

Meta-analyses of research on this question have shown that such a

correlation exists, but that it is only a partial correlation.

In other

words, while it is more likely that someone with unconscious bias will

behave in a biased manner or have explicit biases, researchers have

found some instances where people who have unconscious bias be-

have in a non-discriminatory manner.

However, we have not found

any research indicating that people with unconscious bias who be-

have in a non-discriminatory manner to one degree or another in a

controlled experiment can be counted on to behave that way

consistently.

Accordingly, the IAT is not yet sufficiently reliable to be used as

a screening device for hiring and similar purposes as applied to indi-

viduals. However, the test results in the

aggregate

are useful for

measuring the prevalence of unconscious associations in our soci-

ety.

And they are also useful as an awareness-raising tool in un-

conscious bias trainings because the experience of taking the test

brings to the level of conscious awareness the strength of our uncon-

scious associations. For example, one of the creators of the IAT, Prof.

Mahzarin Banaji, was “deeply embarrassed” by her first experience of

taking the IAT since, as a person of color, she did not think she could

24.

See

Gerald Guild,

The IAT: Questions of Reliability and Validity

, H

HINK

? (Sept. 10, 2010), https://geraldguild.com/blog/2010/09/10/the-iat-ques-

tions-of-reliability-and-validity/,

archived at

https://perma.cc/47QU-4WYU (unac-

counted for variance suggests weak consistency).

25.

See

Anthony G. Greenwald et al.,

Understanding and Using the Implicit As-

sociation Test: III. Meta-Analysis of Predictive Validity

, 97 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

SYCH

. 17, 23 (2009).

26.

See id.

27. From time to time the IAT team publishes the aggregate results, such as

those reported in Tessa E.S. Charlesworth & Mahzarin R. Banaji,

Patterns of Implicit

and Explicit Attitudes: IV. Change and Stability from 2007 to 2020

, 33 P

SYCH

. S

1347 (2022) (showing reduction in certain kinds of bias).

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possibly harbor negative associations about other people of color, but

the IAT demonstrated precisely that.

Denial or Resistance

Another obstacle in the development of bias-reduction strategies

is that, with the enactment of laws prohibiting discrimination during

the past sixty years in the U.S. and other parts of the world, there

has been a dramatic reduction in

espoused

prejudice.

To be biased

is, for many people, a “moral crime.”

Researchers have found that

people across all demographic categories tend to believe that others

are more biased than themselves.

Researchers have also shown

that people who profess a lack of bias often have unconscious, nega-

tive mental associations about people of color and people from other

disadvantaged groups.

This suggests that participants either con-

sciously mask their biases when answering researchers’ questions on

self-report surveys concerning bias, or perhaps are genuinely una-

ware of harboring any biases.

One technique for overcoming resistance to the idea that implicit

bias exists is to explain that developing mental shortcuts that oper-

ate at a subconscious level is not only a typical and unavoidable fea-

ture of human cognition, but also sometimes beneficial. For example,

if we are crossing a street and see a car approaching the intersection,

we instinctively know from past experience whether we are in danger

or not. We do not have to consciously compute the car’s estimated

speed and distance. In contrast, the effects of these mental shortcuts

28.

See

Shankar Vedantam,

See No Bias

, W

ASH

. P

OST

, Jan. 23, 2005, https://

www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/2005/01/23/see-no-bias/

a548dee4-4047-4397-a253-f7f780fae575/,

archived at

https://perma.cc/4Z4S-PJRU.

29.

See generally

Tessa E. S. Charlesworth & Mahzarin R. Banaji,

Patterns of

Implicit and Explicit Attitudes: I. Long-Term Change and Stability from 2007 to 2016

30 P

SYCH

. S

. 174 (2019).

30. D

AVID

W. C

AMPT

, T

HITE

LLY

OOLKIT

ORKBOOK

177, 184 (2018).

31.

See

Qi Wang & Hee Jin Jeon,

Bias in Bias Recognition: People View Others

but Not Themselves as Biased by Preexisting Beliefs and Social Stigmas

, PLOS ONE

(October 9, 2020), https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jour-

nal.pone.0240232,

archived at

https://perma.cc/SA9D-SJZ8.

32.

See, e.g.

, Shanto Iyengar et al.,

Explicit and Implicit Racial Attitudes: A Test

of Their Convergent and Predictive Validity

(Am. Pol. Sci. Ass’n., Ann. Meeting Paper,

2011).

33. One study showed a widespread decrease in self-reported bias against people

who are overweight, while during the same period, the levels of unconscious bias

against the same group increased and then stabilized at the higher level.

See

Charlesworth & Banaji,

supra

note .

See also

Charlesworth & Banaji,

supra

note

REF ID=“_Ref118402996”>.

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may be pernicious when we are engaging with someone who is differ-

ent from us. For example, when we are deciding whether to hire

someone for a job whose race and/or gender are different from ours,

our past mental associations regarding those differences may bias

our decision in ways that we are completely unaware of, thus perpet-

uating the discrimination that we consciously oppose.

Studies of “priming” can also provide a useful tool for overcoming

people’s understandable resistance to the idea that we are all biased.

In one well-known study, researchers analyzed five years’ worth of

decision-making by a medical school admissions office and found that

candidates interviewed on rainy days were rated lower than candi-

dates interviewed on sunny days.

One of the inferences from this

and other priming studies

is that the subtle influences all around

us—including those related to race, gender, and other characteris-

tics—influence us in ways that we do not realize.

Managing the Challenges

Some of the challenges described above arise from the nature of

scientific inquiry—each hard-won conclusion (such as the existence of

unconscious bias) leads to a set of unanswered questions (such as the

best ways of measuring and counteracting bias). Other challenges—

such as the denial and resistance described above—likely arise from

multiple sources, such as: (a) opposition to social change;

(b) status-

quo bias;

and (d) the fact that the emerging

scientific consensus about the pernicious effects of unconscious bias

34.

See generally

Donald A. Redelmeier & Simon D. Baxter,

Rainy Weather and

Medical School Admission Interviews

, 181 C

ANADIAN

. A

’

. J. 933 (2009).

35. One of the most astonishing of these studies is reported in Amos Tversky &

Daniel Kahneman,

Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,

in J

UDG-

MENT

NDER

NCERTAINTY

: H

EURISTICS AND

IASES

ANIEL

AHNEMAN ET AL

EDS

1982), in which participants were shown a spinning wheel, which was rigged to land

on either “10” (Group A) or “65” (Group B). Participants were then asked to estimate

the number of African nations in the United Nations; the median estimate in Group A

was 25, and in Group B it was 45.

See also

RIELY

, P

REDICTABLY

RRATIONAL

IDDEN

ORCES

HAT

HAPE

ECISIONS

28–30 (2010) (participants were

asked to write down the last two digits of their Social Security numbers, which then

impacted their estimates of the cost of various consumer items).

36.

See generally

SABEL

ILKERSON

, C

ASTE

: T

RIGINS OF

ISCONTENT

(2020).

37.

See generally

John T. Jost, Mahzarin R. Banaji & Brian A. Nosek,

A Decade of

System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious

Bolstering of the Status Quo

, 25 P

. P

SYCH

. 881 (2004).

38.

See generally

OUGLAS

TONE

, S

HEILA

EEN

& B

RUCE

ATTON

, D

IFFICULT

ONVERSATIONS

: H

OW TO

ISCUSS

HAT

ATTERS

OST

109-128 (2010) (discussing

identity threat).

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Fall 2022]

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has not yet permeated popular culture, nor is it commonly taught in

public schools.

Despite these obstacles, however, we believe that

businesses, educational institutions, and other organizations have a

responsibility to “follow the science”

and utilize the tools currently

available for bias reduction so that our society lives up to its espoused

values of non-discrimination.

III. S

UMMARY OF

ESEARCH

Scientific research on bias-reduction strategies has identified

seven main types of interventions:

A. Raising awareness of bias

B. Increasing motivation to counteract bias

C. Individuation

D. Perspective-taking and empathy

E. Contact with “outgroup” members

F. Stereotype negation / replacement

G. Mindfulness

It is worth noting that many of these themes overlap (e.g., some

interventions designed to raise awareness of bias also have the effect

of increasing motivation to counteract bias). Also, some interventions

involve the use of more than one of these techniques.

We found that the largest number of studies focused on race and

gender bias, with fewer studies of bias reduction strategies focused on

39. Indeed, in the United States, there has been a recent backlash in some states

against teaching about racism in public schools.

See

Eesha Pendharkar,

Four Things

Schools Won’t Be Able to Do Under ‘Critical Race Theory’ Laws

, 40 E

DUC

. W

. 8

(2021). On the other hand, some states have passed laws requiring such instruction.

See

Sahar Akbarzai,

New Jersey is the Latest State to Require Schools to Offer Courses

on Diversity and Unconscious Bias

, CNN (April 11, 2021). And some professions re-

quire instruction about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

See, e.g.,

DUCATIONAL

OL-

ICY AND

CCREDITATION

TANDARDS FOR

ACCALAUREATE AND

ASTER

’

OCIAL

ORK

ROGRAMS

, A

CCREDITATION

TANDARD

2.0 (Council on Soc. Work Educ., 2022), https://

www.cswe.org/getmedia/94471c42-13b8-493b-9041-b30f48533d64/2022-EPAS.pdf,

archived at

https://perma.cc/A9RT-7AQD. Recently, the American Bar Association

added to its Standards for legal education a requirement that law students learn

“about bias, cross-cultural competency and racism.”

See

ABA S

TANDARDS AND

ULES

ROCEDURE FOR

PPROVAL OF

CHOOLS

, S

TANDARD

303(

) (A

. B

’

2022).

40. This phrase was recently popularized, in the context of the Covid-19 pan-

demic, by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who posted the following statement on Twitter: “People

want to fire me or put me in jail for what I’ve done. Mainly, follow the science.” Carlie

Porterfield,

Dr. Fauci on GOP Criticism: ‘Attacks On Me, Quite Frankly, Are Attacks

on Science‘,

ORBES

(June 9, 2021), https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/

2021/06/09/fauci-on-gop-criticism-attacks-on-me-quite-frankly-are-attacks-on-science/

?sh=4dd006e04542,

archived at

https://perma.cc/522A-7UBD.

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[Vol. 28:1

other types of bias. We also found that most of the racial bias studies

in the U.S. focused on bias against Black people as opposed to other

people of color or indigenous people.

We used several selection criteria to decide which of the many

available studies to include in the summaries below: (1) validity (e.g.,

are the findings similar to those of other studies, and therefore likely

to be replicable?); (2) usefulness (e.g., how easily could the findings be

adapted for use outside the laboratory or replicated in other field set-

tings?); and (3) breadth (e.g., looking for studies of various types of

bias). Also, in order to avoid the effects of publication bias,

we paid

particular attention to studies in which attempted bias-reduction

strategies produced little, if any, effect.

There are a few caveats regarding these studies. Only a few of

them examine the durability of bias-reduction effects—a critical fac-

tor in our view

—or the impact of repeating a specific strategy or

group of strategies over a long period of time. Further, as with much

of the research in social psychology, the experimental subjects are

often university students or faculty, and that may affect the extent to

which these findings are generalizable.

Finally, social psychologists are still exploring many of the con-

clusions reached in these studies. Accordingly, the conclusions that

we reach in this review of the scientific literature are necessarily ten-

tative and will no doubt require revision in the years ahead. How-

ever, we believe it is worthwhile to take stock of the state of

knowledge today, distill that information into a usable summary, and

utilize that information to devise practical strategies for bias reduc-

tion that can be implemented individually, in organizations, and in

the practice of conflict resolution.

In the sections that follow, we describe each of the seven types of

intervention, the research that shows the bias-reduction effect of

those interventions, and our own observations about the usefulness

41.

See generally

Abhijit S. Nair,

Publication Bias – Importance of Studies with

Negative Results!

, 63 I

NDIAN

J. A

NESTHESIOLOGY

. 505 (2019) (describing the reasons

why researchers are more likely to publish findings that prove a research hypothesis

than disprove it).

42. As individuals decide whether to try one or more of the bias reduction strate-

gies described in this article, we believe it is reasonable for them to consider not only

the durability of bias-reduction effects but also the robustness, or lack of robustness,

of those effects.

43.

See

Paul H. P. Hanel & Katia C. Vione,

Do Student Samples Provide an Accu-

rate Estimate of the General Public?

, PLOS ONE (Dec. 16, 2016), https://

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5176168/,

archived at

https://perma.cc/

M9MP-MBQR.

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of that research, including comments about such factors as sample

size and the representativeness (or lack of representativeness) of the

participants in the research that bear on the value of that research.

Raising Awareness of Bias and the Impacts of Bias

Researchers have found that simply raising an awareness of un-

conscious bias and the deleterious effects of bias can reduce such

biases.

Experiments conducted at Rutgers University found that partici-

pation in an undergraduate course entitled “Prejudice and Conflict”

reduced the students’ implicit and explicit biases, as compared to

when they began the course.

The course was taught by an African

American professor. However, the researchers measured the extent

to which students’ biases were changed if they took a course on an

unrelated subject from the same professor and found no change. Ac-

cordingly, they concluded that “the content of the . . . seminar, as well

as its relatively intimate atmosphere, may have fostered the open-

ness and appreciation for diversity necessary to enable the un-

learning of implicit and explicit biases.”

Unfortunately, this study

did not measure the durability of these effects over time, and the re-

searchers could not rule out the possibility that students in the exper-

imental arm of the study were predisposed to be influenced by the

course, because those students had volunteered to take the course.

However, two of the core findings of this research—namely, the mal-

leability of bias and the impact of raising awareness of bias—are

significant.

A study of gender bias conducted by researchers at the Univer-

sity of Wisconsin involved 2,290 faculty members in 92 departments

in medical, science, and engineering divisions of the university.

The results, which are also discussed in Part III(H) below, showed

that an intervention designed to increase awareness of gender bias (a

2.5-hour workshop in which both the existence of gender bias and its

44. For an overview of the social psychology research regarding bias reduction,

see Rachel Godsill et al.,

The Science of Equality, Volume 1: Addressing Implicit Bias,

Racial Anxiety, and Stereotype Threat in Education and Healthcare,

ERCEPTION

NST

(Nov. 2014), http://perception.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Science-of-Equal-

ity.pdf.,

archived at

https://perma.cc/JYZ8-CUXE.

45.

See

Laurie Rudman et al.,

“Unlearning” Automatic Biases: The Malleability of

Implicit Prejudice and Stereotypes

, 81 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 856, 856 (2001).

46.

Id.

at 865.

47.

See generally

Molly Carnes et al.,

The Effect of an Intervention to Break the

Gender Bias Habit for Faculty at One Institution: A Cluster of Randomized, Con-

trolled Trial

, 90 J. A

’

. M

. C

OLLS

221 (2015).

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Harvard Negotiation Law Review

[Vol. 28:1

effects were studied) resulted in changed attitudes and behaviors

among the faculty regarding gender equity. These changes included

increased motivation to counteract gender bias and greater self-effi-

cacy to promote change. Both male and female faculty reported an

improved climate in their departments.

These effects were found

three days after the workshop and also three months after the work-

shop.

The researchers reported that “[w]hen at least 25% of a de-

partment’s faculty attended the workshop, self-reports of actions to

promote gender equity increased significantly at three months.”

In-

terestingly, unconscious gender bias—as measured by the IAT using

a test that examined the association of male/female with the catego-

ries of leader/supporter—was largely unchanged, suggesting the du-

rability of the bias that associates “male” with “leader” and “female”

with “supporter.”

One of the things that both of these studies have in common is

that the intervention—in one case, a semester-long course and in the

other a 2.5-hour workshop—was more robust than simply a brief

statement bringing the awareness of bias to the attention of the stud-

ies’ participants. A contrary example—a study of juror behavior after

the jurors were given a single paragraph-long instruction about the

existence of bias and an admonition to avoid letting bias affect the

jurors’ decisions

—showed no change in the jurors’ decision-

making.

48.

Id.

at 226.

49.

Id.

at 222.

50.

Id.

at 226.

51.

Id.

at 227.

52. The jury instruction states: “Do not decide the case based on ‘implicit biases.’

As we discussed in jury selection, everyone, including me, has feelings, assumptions,

perceptions, fears, and stereotypes, that is, ‘implicit biases,’ that we may not be aware

of. These hidden thoughts can impact what we see and hear, how we remember what

we see and hear, and how we make important decisions. Because you are making very

important decisions in this case, I strongly encourage you to evaluate the evidence

carefully and to resist jumping to conclusions based on personal likes or dislikes, gen-

eralizations, gut feelings, prejudices, sympathies, stereotypes, or biases. The law de-

mands that you return a just verdict, based solely on the evidence, your individual

evaluation of that evidence, your reason and common sense, and these instructions.

Our system of justice is counting on you to render a fair decision based on the evi-

dence, not on biases.” Jury Instructions from Judge Mark Bennett (N.D. Iowa), In-

struction No. 16, https://northerndistrictpracticeprogram.org/wp-content/uploads/

2017/09/Bennett-Conduct-of-Jury-Instructions.pdf,

archived at

https://perma.cc/

9SWR-57PR.

53.

See generally

YNTHIA

Awareness as a First Step Toward Overcoming

Implicit Bias

, in E

NHANCING

USTICE

: R

EDUCING

IAS

. 289 (Sarah Redfield et al., Eds.

2017).

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An additional study examined whether the impact of raising

awareness about gender bias and the effects of bias might be affected

by the format in which the information was presented.

This re-

search was done at Yale University, where thirty male undergradu-

ates

were shown data about ten pairs of male and female

employees—including their salary levels—working in ten different

departments of a fictitious company to see whether the study’s sub-

jects noticed a pattern of salary discrimination against the women.

When the participants in the study were given a fact sheet that ag-

gregated the data for the company as a whole, they were far more

likely to conclude that there was a pattern of discrimination, as com-

pared with participants who saw ten information sheets—one for

each employee. The conclusion of the researchers was that raising

awareness of bias requires sensitivity to cognitive distortions, includ-

ing being aware of one’s resistance to seeing bias: “the desire to deny

injustice . . . blinds many justice-loving individuals to the existence of

discrimination.”

An obstacle in raising the awareness of bias is a well-established

tendency of individuals to believe that their own judgments are less

biased than those of others.

Therefore, techniques designed to raise

awareness of bias should include education about this vulnerability

to self-serving assessments that minimize our own biases despite the

evidence that bias is widespread.

Based on the studies described above, one might reasonably con-

clude that interventions designed to raise awareness of bias and the

effects of bias need to be (1) robust (i.e., the information presented

needs to unambiguous); (2) participatory (unlike the one-way commu-

nication exemplified by jury instructions); (3) sustained over time

(since the durability of such interventions is uncertain); and (4) de-

signed to include information about our psychological defenses to rec-

ognizing our own biases.

54.

See generally

Faye Crosby et al.,

Cognitive Biases in the Perception of Dis-

crimination: The Importance of Format

, 14 S

OLES

637 (1986).

55. The researchers, a majority of whom were women, decided to use male sub-

jects because “we had encountered a ceiling effect in a pretest with female subjects,

whereby they tended to give high ratings of discrimination (6 or 7 on a 7-point scale)

to all departments.” In other words, there was a wider variation in the perception of

discrimination among the male participants.

Id.

at 639.

56.

Id.

at 645.

57.

See

Joyce Ehrlinger et al.,

Peering into the Bias Blind Spot: People’s Assess-

ments of Bias in Themselves and Others

, 31 P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. B

ULL

. 680,

680 (2005);

see generally

Emily Pronin,

Perception and Misperception of Bias in

Human Judgment

, 11 T

RENDS

OGNITIVE

. 37 (2007) (summarizing research show-

ing that people tend to recognize other people’s bias but deny their own).

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Increasing Motivation to Counteract Bias

Researchers have identified a second important method of reduc-

ing unconscious bias – fostering the motivation to be unbiased. As

described below in this section, internal motivation appears to have a

greater bias-reduction effect than external motivation.

A study by Stewart et al. (2008) established that the activation of

intentions may be effective for controlling race bias: “automatic stere-

otyping was reduced when [White] participants made an intention to

think specific counter-stereotypical thoughts whenever they encoun-

tered a Black individual.”

This effect is significantly more pro-

nounced in people who are internally motivated to be unbiased as

compared with people who are externally motivated.

“External motivation comes from the desire for approval or re-

wards or to avoid negative sanctions,” according to Duke Law School

professor Katharine Bartlett in her extensive review of the social sci-

ence literature on bias reduction.

By contrast, “[i]nternal motiva-

tion comes from within the individual’s personal values and identity

structure.”

Bartlett goes on to note that “people respond to both,

often at the same time.”

However, in the studies described below,

researchers have endeavored to look separately at internal versus ex-

ternal motivation.

One question that arises from these studies is: What can be done

to promote internal motivation to be unbiased? In a study of race

bias at the University of Wyoming, researchers found that activation

of “egalitarian goals” (for example, fair allocation of resources) is as-

sociated with increased internal motivation to be unbiased.

What,

58. Brandon D. Stewart & B. Keith Payne,

Bringing Automatic Stereotyping

Under Control: Implementation Intentions as Efficient Means of Thought Control

, 34

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. B

ULL

. 1332, 1332 (2008).

59.

See

Jack Glaser & Eric D. Knowles,

Implicit Motivation to Control Prejudice

44 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 164, 171 (2008); David M. Amodio et al.,

Individual

Differences in the Regulation of Intergroup Bias: The Role of Conflicting Monitoring

and Neural Signals for Control

, 94 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 60, 71 (2008);

see

also

Patricia D. Devine et al.,

The Regulation of Explicit and Implicit Race Bias: The

Role of Motivations to Respond Without Prejudice

, 82 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

835, 836 (2002) (discussing implications for the development of effective self-regula-

tion of race bias).

60. Katharine T. Bartlett,

Making Good on Good Intentions: The Critical Role of

Motivation in Reducing Implicit Workplace Discrimination

, 95 V

IRGINIA

L. R

. 1897,

1930 (2009), https://perma.cc/CCV8-SSCT.

61.

Id.

62.

Id.

63.

See

Michael John et al.,

Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice

and Automatic Egalitarian Goal Activation

, 44 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 1514,

1514 (2008).

See also

Gordon Moskowitz & Peizhong Lei,

Egalitarian Goals Trigger

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then, promotes the development of egalitarian goals? There are

likely many answers to that question, including raising awareness of

the unfair allocation of resources in society based on race and other

invidious distinctions, some of which are described in Part I. In addi-

tion, perspective-taking—one of the de-biasing techniques described

in Part III(F)—has been found to enhance egalitarian goals and in-

ternal motivation to be unbiased.

Three other points are worth noting with regard to motivation.

First, one study found that cognitive depletion leads people to react

in stereotypical ways, especially when forced to make a hasty deci-

sion, but less so in people who are internally motivated to be unbi-

ased.

This conclusion is supported by another study which

measured how people operationalize race stereotypes in a simulated

“shooter” experiment, in which subjects had to make split-second de-

cisions about whether an image flashed on the screen was dangerous

or not; people with higher levels of internal motivation were less

likely to react in stereotypical ways, as compared with people who

were externally motivated to be unbiased.

Second, priming techniques can affect the way in which motiva-

tions are activated. In a study about inducing internal motivation,

researchers found that priming White participants to think about a

Black person as someone who would be on the same team with them

resulted in a reduction of implicit bias.

This research suggests that

encouraging a positive connection with an “outgroup” member might

be a more successful strategy with regard to unconscious bias than

trying to suppress negative thoughts about those members.

Third, the use of motivational interventions can backfire: in

some instances, “inducing

extrinsic

[as opposed to intrinsic] motiva-

tions to regulate prejudice . . . can lead to greater implicit racial

Stereotype Inhibition: A Proactive Form of Stereotype Control

, 47 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 103, 103 (“participants with egalitarian goals exhibit stereotype inhibi-

tion, and this occurs despite the fact that they lack awareness of the inhibition and

lack the conscious intent to inhibit stereotypes at the time the response is made.”).

64.

See

Adam D. Galinsky,

Perspective-Taking: Decreasing Stereotype Expression,

Stereotype Accessibility, and In-Group Favoritism

, 78 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

708, 720 (2000).

65.

See

Sang Hee Park et al.,

Implicit Motivation to Control Prejudice Moderates

the Effect of Cognitive Depletion on Unintended Discrimination

, 26 S

. C

OGNITION

401, 415–17 (2008).

66.

See

Glaser & Knowles,

supra

note 59, at 171.

67.

See

Samuel L. Gaertner & John F. Dovidio,

Understanding and Addressing

Contemporary Racism: From Aversive Racism to the Common Ingroup Identity Model

61 J. S

. I

SSUES

615, 633 (2005).

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prejudice.”

In our view, more research is needed to identify the con-

ditions under which such unwanted results occur.

Encouraging Individuation

A third bias-reduction technique that researchers have discov-

ered is individuation— enabling people to see others more three-di-

mensionally, as opposed to seeing them as defined solely by an

identity, such as race, gender, or disability.

In one such study at Rutgers University, a cohort of White, La-

tinx, and Asian college students were asked to review the college ap-

plications of high school students.

The fictitious applicants were

given stereotypically White-sounding or Black-sounding names.

When the study’s participants were given no information about the

applicants other than their name and hometown, the participants’

predictions of the academic performance of the applicants reflected a

strong racial bias against the Black applicants. However, when the

participants were given detailed information about the applicants

(such as their GPA and class rank; their SAT scores in reading, math,

and writing; awards received; their high school sports and other ac-

tivities; and their race), the salience of race disappeared.

A similar phenomenon was seen in a field experiment involving

Airbnb property owners. The researchers found that the property

owners were less likely to accept guests with names that sounded

Black, but that this bias was eliminated when individuating informa-

tion was provided in the form of an online rating of the prospective

guest by another purported host.

In another study of individuation, researchers at the University

of Victoria examined the “other-race effect”—the much-studied abil-

ity of people to differentiate the faces of individuals of their own race

more accurately than the faces of other-race individuals.

One

group of White subjects was shown photographs of faces and asked to

68.

See

Calvin Lai, Kelly Hoffman & Brian Nosek,

Reducing Implicit Prejudice

, 7

. & P

ERSONALITY

SYCH

. C

OMPASS

315, 318–19 (2013).

69.

See generally

Rachel Rubinstein et al.,

Reliance on Individuating Information

and Stereotypes in Implicit and Explicit Person Perception

, 75 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

SYCH

. 54 (2018).

70. The researchers categorized the names as being prototypically Black-sound-

ing or White-sounding based on a pilot survey.

See id.

at 59.

71.

See id.

72. Ruomeng Cui et al.,

Reducing Discrimination with Reviews in the Sharing

Economy: Evidence from Field Experiments on Airbnb

, M

GMT

. S

. (Jan. 9, 2017).

73.

See generally

Sophie Lebrecht et al.,

Perceptual Other-Race Training Reduces

Implicit Racial Bias

, PLOS ONE (Jan. 21, 2009).

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categorize the faces as either Caucasian, Asian, or African American;

this group showed no reduction in race bias after performing the

task. A second group of White subjects was shown the same photo-

graphs of faces and provided with training on how to differentiate the

African American faces depicted in the photographs; this group

showed a marked reduction in implicit racial bias after completing

the training.

Insight about the value of individuation can also be gleaned from

another study of racial bias, in which researchers measured non-

Black participants’ attitudes toward Black people.

The researchers

found that participants varied in their beliefs about the “variability”

of traits among Black people: participants who saw Black people, as a

group, as a more heterogenous group expressed less biased views

about Blacks, and the opposite was true—i.e., participants who per-

ceived Black people as more homogenous as a group expressed more

biased attitudes.

In related research, individuation has proven to be useful in a

setting in which the stakes could not possibly be higher—represent-

ing defendants in death penalty cases. In such cases, according to an

analysis in the Hofstra Law Review, defense lawyers found greater

success when they provided the jury with information about the de-

fendant’s life story, including the challenges the defendant faced—as

opposed to emphasizing clinical diagnoses of the defendants, which

tended to reinforce stereotypes. Individuation, the authors con-

cluded, helped to overcome jurors’ unconscious bias.

The overall conclusion from these studies is that individuation—

seeing people more three-dimensionally—can counteract unconscious

bias with even a minimal intervention, such as teaching participants

to differentiate other-race faces. The data also suggest that the more

74.

Id.

at 3.

75.

See generally

Alan J. Lambert et al.,

On the Predictive Validity of Implicit

Attitude Measures: The Moderating Effect of Perceived Group Variability

, 41 J. E

XPER-

IMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 114 (2005).

76.

See id.

at 125. For example, “[p]articipants were asked to imagine, out of a

sample of 100 Blacks selected randomly from the population, how many Blacks they

would assign a rating of ‘0

’

with respect to likeableness, how many they would assign

a ‘1

’

, and so on up to 10. Computation of the standard deviation of each resulting

distribution for each participant constituted our operationalization of perceived group

variability.”

. at 119.

77.

See

Sean D. O’Brien & Kathleen Wayland,

Implicit Bias and Capital Deci-

sion-Making: Using Narrative to Counter Prejudicial Psychiatric Labels

, 43 H

OFSTRA

L. R

. 751, 772–80 (2015).

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information we have about people, the more robust this effect is likely

to be.

Fostering Perspective-Taking and Empathy

Researchers have used a variety of techniques to induce empathy

and perspective-taking—i.e., seeing the world through the eyes of

those who are subjected to biased perceptions—and measure the im-

pact of those techniques in reducing bias. This section describes that

research and the various media that have been studied as perspec-

tive-taking interventions: (1) taped narrative, (2) TV news documen-

tary, (3) movie clip, (4) virtual reality device, and (5) journaling.

Taped Narrative

In a 1997 experiment, the study participants listened to a taped

narrative read by a woman who had contracted AIDS.

In one arm

of the study, participants were asked to “take an objective perspective

toward what is described.” In another arm of the study, participants

were asked to “try to feel the full impact of what this woman has been

through and how she feels as a result.”

After this empathy-induc-

ing intervention, the second group showed less bias toward the narra-

tor (as compared with the first group) and also a reduced bias toward

people with AIDS.

TV News Documentary

In a 2004 experiment, study participants were shown a segment

of an ABC television documentary

in which two young men—one

White and one Black—were seen from the vantage point of a hidden

camera shopping at a record store, looking for an apartment to rent,

78.

See, e.g.

, Cui et al.,

supra

note 72, at 28 (finding that racial bias exhibited by

Airbnb hosts was reduced by adding individuating information to the profiles of po-

tential guests).

79.

See

C. Daniel Batson et al.,

Empathy and Attitudes: Can Feeling for a Mem-

ber of a Stigmatized Group Improve Feelings Toward the Group?

, 72 J. P

ERSONALITY

. P

SYCH

. 105, 108 (1997).

80.

Id.

81.

See id.

at 109–110. A subsidiary finding was that the bias was reduced less if

the participants were told that the woman had contracted AIDS because of risky be-

havior as opposed to innocently contracting AIDS from a blood transfusion or medical

procedure.

See id.

at 117.

82. Racial Bias in St. Louis Revealed Via Hidden Camera – Diane Sawyer Prime-

time 1991, Y

UBE

(July 10, 2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XprcqeZ5-

archived at

https://perma.cc/WJC3-PUA9.

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Fall 2022]

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and shopping for a car.

The documentary showed repeated in-

stances of racist treatment of the Black man. One group of study par-

ticipants were instructed to “try to imagine how . . . the African

American in the documentary feels about what is happening and how

it affects his life,” while a second group is instructed to “try to take an

objective perspective toward what is described,” and a third group

was given no instructions. There was significant racial bias reduc-

tion in the first group but none in the other two.

Movie Clip

In a 2009 study, undergraduates at the University of Michigan—

primarily White, but also including Black and Latinx participants—

watched a clip from the 1993 movie “Joy Luck Club” (described by the

researchers as “a movie depicting the experiences of Asian Americans

from the main character’s perspective”) to examine whether it would

reduce bias against Asian Americans.

In the experimental arm of

the experiment, participants were instructed to “imagine yourself in

the position of the main character”; in the control arm, participants

were instructed to “imagine what a newspaper reviewer might think

of the clip.”

Then both groups of participants were asked to review

the college applications of (fictitious) individuals—some identified as

White and some as Asian. Participants in the experimental arm

viewed the Asian applicants as more likable than did the participants

in the control arm.

The researchers then went further and added

(fictitious) Black college applicants to the experiment, to see whether

the reduced anti-Asian bias found among the “perspective-taking”

group would result in less bias against Black people, and the answer

was no.

However, a follow-up study in 2013 involving the same

83.

See

John F. Dovidio et al.,

Perspective and Prejudice: Antecedents and Mediat-

ing Mechanisms

, 30 PUBMED 1537, 1539–40 (2004).

84. This result seems particularly surprising since the documentary itself is a

powerful depiction and indictment of racism and therefore one might have expected

some effect from the film’s raising an awareness of bias.

See supra

Part III(A).

85.

See

Margaret Shih et al.,

Perspective Taking: Reducing Prejudice Towards

General Outgroups and Specific Individuals

, 12 G

. P

ROCESSES

& I

NTERGROUP

ELS

565, 566 (2009) (“The clip features June, the main character, discussing the dilemma

involved with the difficulty of growing up American while being held to more tradi-

tional Asian standards with her mother.”).

86.

Id.

at 567.

87.

Id.

at 568.

88.

Id.

at 570.

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lead researcher and the same experimental setup showed that induc-

ing empathy for the Asian character in the film resulted in less ex-

plicit and implicit bias against outgroup members generally—not just

Asians.

Virtual Reality Device

A 2021 study involving the use of a virtual reality headset ex-

plored the question of whether seeing oneself as a member of a racial

outgroup would, by itself, reduce race bias.

The researchers found

that there was an increase in empathy but no change in race bias—

implicit or explicit—and therefore we would not recommend the use

of this technique.

Journaling

One other study about perspective-taking is worth noting. In

2011, researchers examined the question of whether perspective-tak-

ing would counteract the denial of intergroup discrimination.

Par-

ticipants in this study included White and Asian undergraduates who

were asked to spend five minutes writing about a day in the life of a

randomly assigned (fictitious) Black person, Latinx person, or White

person. One group was asked to “vividly imagine what the target

person might be thinking, feeling, and experiencing during the day,”

while a control group was asked to “not get caught up in what the

target person might be thinking, feeling, and experiencing during the

day, but rather, to write as though they were a casual observer.” Not

surprisingly, the “perspective-taking” group was more inclined to

rate discrimination as a more plausible explanation for racial ine-

quality than lack of motivation.

89.

See generally

Margaret J. Shih et al.,

Perspective-Taking and Empathy: Gen-

eralizing the Reduction of Group Bias Towards Asian Americans to General Out-

groups

, 4 A

SIAN

. J. P

SYCH

. 79 (2013).

90.

See generally

R´emi Th´eriault et al.,

Body Swapping with a Black Person

Boosts Virtual Reality to Embody Another

, 74 Q. J. E

. P

SYCH

. 2057 (2021).

91. An additional concern with this technique is that it could remind people of

“blackface” (white people darkening their skin), which became popular in the U.S. as

white performers played characters that dehumanized African Americans.

See

Alexis

Clark,

How the History of Blackface Is Rooted in Racism

, H

ISTORY

(Feb. 15, 2019)

(“The portrayal of blackface . . . is steeped in centuries of racism. It peaked in popular-

ity during an era in the United States when demands for civil rights by recently

emancipated slaves triggered racial hostility. And today, because of blackface’s his-

toric use to denigrate people of African descent, its continued use is still considered

racist.”).

92.

See generally

Andrew R. Todd et al.,

Perspective Taking Combats the Denial

of Intergroup Discrimination

, 48 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 738 (2012).

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The studies suggest that there are many ways to induce empathy

and perspective-taking. Furthermore, it might be reasonable to

surmise that the vividness, frequency, and duration of such interven-

tions may correlate with the extent of the impact on bias.

Increasing Contact with “Outgroup” Members

In this section, we examine a fifth type of bias-reducing interven-

tion: contact with “outgroup” members. Several forms of intergroup

contact—direct, vicarious, imagined, and media contact—have

proven to be effective. In these studies, direct contact means in-per-

son connection, especially when it is peer-to-peer contact. Vicarious

contact involves the observation of a fellow ingroup member having

contact with a member of an outgroup. Imagined contact involves

asking people to imagine a set of interactions with an outgroup mem-

ber, such as performing a shared task. Media contact means expo-

sure to images and stories of people who belong to an outgroup.

Direct Contact

In his pioneering 1954 book,

The Nature of Prejudice

, psycholo-

gist Gordon Allport argued that contact with outgroup members can

be a highly effective way to reduce bias under certain conditions.

Allport proposed that optimal intergroup contact would involve peo-

ple of “equal status, [would] include cooperation to achieve common

goals, and should be supported by important societal institutions.”

A host of “contact studies” ensued, and in 2006, Pettigrew et al.

undertook a meta-analysis of 515 such studies regarding intergroup

contact and found that intergroup contact reliably decreases inter-

group prejudice.

In addition, the researchers found that intergroup

contact not only generalizes to the entire outgroup (i.e., beyond the

93.

See generally

John F. Dovidio et al.,

Improving Intergroup Relations Through

Direct, Extended and Other Forms of Indirect Contact

, 14 G

. P

ROCESSES

& I

NTER-

GROUP

ELS

. 147 (2011); Blake M. Riek et al.,

Intergroup Threat and Outgroup Atti-

tudes: A Meta-Analytic Review

, 10 P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. R

. 336 (2006).

94. G

ORDON

W. A

LLPORT

, T

ATURE OF

REJUDICE

261–81 (1954).

See also

supra

note 53, at 290 (noting that one limitation of this early work on the subject

is that Allport relied largely on conscious action and self-reporting).

95. Rhiannon N. Turner & Richard J. Crisp,

Imagining Intergroup Contact

Reduces Implicit Prejudice

, 49 B

RIT

. J. S

. P

SYCH

. 129, 130 (2010) (summarizing All-

port’s conclusions).

96.

See generally

Thomas F. Pettigrew & Linda R. Tropp,

A Meta-Analytic Test of

Intergroup Contact Theory

, 90 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 751 (2006).

See also

Kristin Davies et al.,

Cross-Group Friendships and Intergroup Attitudes: A Meta-Ana-

lytic Review

, 15 P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. R

. 332, 332 (2011) (noting that “cross-

group friendships are especially powerful forms of intergroup contact”);

id.

at 345

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immediate outgroup participants of the study) but also can lead to a

decrease in prejudice toward other outgroups.

In 2007, Turner et al. found that self-disclosure was a key compo-

nent of the type of contact that reduces bias.

In 2012, Tadmor et al.

showed that intergroup contact reduces bias by means of greater lik-

ing, being less afraid of “the unknown,” and higher levels of empathy

with the outgroup—suggesting that emotional factors are crucial,

rather than mere knowledge of the outgroup.

This study also

showed that exposure to multicultural experiences (as opposed to

monocultural experiences of solely one’s own or another culture)

leads to a decrease in stereotypes, as well as changes in behavior (for

example, reduction in discriminatory hiring decisions).

A related study showed that the bias-reduction effects of inter-

group contact may be due in some contexts to “social tuning”—the

tendency to adopt other people’s attitudes or what we believe their

attitudes to be.

In this study, for example, “European Americans

(but not Asian Americans) exhibited less automatic prejudice in the

presence of a Black experimenter than a White experimenter.”

100

One of the fascinating aspects of “contact theory” is that, under

some circumstances, intergroup interactions can increase bias.

101

McKeown et al. (2017) point out that “in everyday life, contact may be

construed as a negative experience that increases rather than de-

creases responses such as prejudice, anxiety, and avoidance.”

102

addition, they contend, “in real-life settings, contact is often circum-

scribed by informal practices of (re)segregation that are easily over-

looked if researchers rely primarily on examining structured contact

(noting that “cross-group friendships appear to promote positive intergroup atti-

tudes,” and the favorable impact on implicit and explicit attitudes is similar).

97.

See

Rhiannon Turner, et al.,

Reducing Explicit and Implicit Outgroup

Prejudice Via Direct and Extended Contact: The Mediating Role of Self-Disclosure and

Intergroup Anxiety

, 93 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 369, 369 (2007).

98.

See generally

Carmit T. Tadmor et al.,

Multicultural Experiences Reduce In-

tergroup Bias Through Epistemic Unfreezing

, 103 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 750

(2012).

99.

See

Brian S. Lowery et al.,

Social Influence Effects on Automatic Racial

Prejudice

, 81 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 842, 843 (2001).

100.

Id.

101.

See, e.g.

, Fiona Barlow et al.,

The Contact Caveat: Negative Contact Predicts

Increased Prejudice More Than Positive Contact Predicts Reduced Prejudice

, 38 P

ER-

SONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. B

ULL

. 1629, 1629 (2012) (stating that “negative contact may

be more strongly associated with increased racism and discrimination than positive

contact is with its reduction”).

102.

See

Shelley McKeown & John Dixon,

The “Contact Hypothesis”: Critical Re-

flections and Future Directions

, 11 S

. & P

ERSONALITY

SYCH

. C

OMPASS

1, 1 (2017).

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and explicit processes using primarily laboratory and questionnaire

methods.”

103

MacInnis et al. (2015)

104

address this tension by offering a math-

ematical model of when intergroup “interaction” (which is often asso-

ciated with heightened stress, intergroup anxiety, or outgroup

avoidance) reaches a critical mass of

positive

intergroup “contact”

(which is often associated with bias reduction and lower intergroup

anxiety). According to the researchers, once this threshold is

reached, “positive outcomes are maintained through the ongoing fa-

cilitation of positive intergroup interactions by past intergroup

contact.”

105

Extended or Vicarious Contact

According to the “extended contact hypothesis,” first introduced

by Wright et al. (1997), the mere knowledge that an ingroup member

has a close, positive relationship with an outgroup member can re-

duce intergroup bias.

106

The researchers found evidence that person-

ally having cross-group friends is not necessary and that knowing

about an ingroup member who has an outgroup friend improves atti-

tudes toward the outgroup as a whole.

107

The impact of vicarious contact is enhanced, according to re-

search by Dovidio et al. (2010) when the ingroup member observes

another ingroup member interact with an outgroup member: “View-

ing (as opposed to merely knowing about) a positive interaction be-

tween an ingroup member and an outgroup member constitutes

vicarious intergroup contact, and it produced, as predicted, more pos-

itive intergroup attitudes than did control conditions.”

108

A meta-analysis by Zhou et al. covers 20 years of research (115

studies) and confirmed the extended contact hypothesis and showed

103.

104.

See generally

Cara C. MacInnis & Elizabeth Page-Gould,

How Can Inter-

group Interaction be Bad if Intergroup Contact is Good? Exploring and Reconciling an

Apparent Paradox in the Science of Intergroup Relations

, 10 P

ERSPECTIVES ON

SYCH

. 307 (2015).

105.

Id.

at 313 (citing Jeffrey R. Binder et al.,

Where is the Semantic System? A

Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of 120 Functional Neuroimaging Studies

, 19 C

ERE-

BRAL

ORTEX

2767 (2009); Pettigrew & Tropp,

supra

note 96.)

106.

See generally

Aron Wright et al.,

The Extended Contact Effect

Knowledge of

Cross-Group Friendships and Prejudice,

73 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 73 (1997)

107.

See id.

at 79.

108.

See

Dovidio et al

., supra

note 93 (citing Robyn K. Mallett & Timothy D. Wil-

son,

Increasing Positive Intergroup Contact

, 46 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 383

(2010)).

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that the magnitude of this effect was on a par with direct friendship

as a factor in improving cross-group attitudes.

109

Social networking sites provide an important context for vicari-

ous intergroup contact. Using an online survey, Barker et al. tried to

understand the potential impact of vicarious intergroup contact via

social media sites “on attitudes to and expectancies about interac-

tions with racial outgroup members.”

110

The study established that

intergroup contact via social networking browsing, by itself, had no

impact on racial prejudice reduction, but that when such browsing

also involved self-reported perspective-taking, bias was reduced.

Imagined Contact

In a 2010 study, Turner et. al went a step further and tested the

impact of imagined contact.

111

The authors demonstrated in three

experiments that imagining intergroup contact leads to improved at-

titudes toward outgroup members and a decrease in unconscious bias

toward those outgroup members. Participants were asked to imagine

meeting an outgroup member before reporting their overall general

feelings toward members of the outgroup. It was found to be crucial

that participants imagined a concrete encounter with an outgroup

member rather than just envisioning an outgroup member without

the interaction component.

112

The authors also found that it was

more beneficial for participants to imagine a positive interaction with

an outgroup member rather than just a neutral encounter.

In the first experiment, young participants who imagined having

an interaction with an elderly person showed decreased levels of age

bias. In the second experiment, non-Muslim participants who

imagined talking to a Muslim stranger subsequently showed more

positive implicit attitudes toward Muslims than the control group.

And, in the third experiment, heterosexual men were asked to imag-

ine an encounter with a gay man, and they reported having more pos-

itive feelings toward gay men and less intergroup anxiety than the

control group.

109.

See

Shelly Zhou et al.,

The Extended Contact Hypothesis: A Meta-Analysis on

20 Years of Research

, 23 P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. R

. 132, 132 (2019).

110.

See

Valerie Barker,

Is Contact Enough? The Role of Vicarious Contact with

Racial Outgroups via Social Networking Sites

1 (Manuscript presented to Intergroup

division for the annual International Communication Association conference in Phoe-

nix, Arizona, May 2012), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301346626_

Is_contact_enough_The_Role_of_Vicarious_Contact_with_Racial_Outgroups_via_So-

cial_Networking_Sites,

archived at

https://perma.cc/KUR5-ZH4E.

111.

See generally

Turner & Crisp,

supra

note 95.

112.

See id.

at 131–32.

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In 2013, Miles et al. published a meta-analytical study of the

“imagined contact” hypothesis.

113

They reviewed more than 70 stud-

ies which “showed that imagining a positive interaction with an out-

group member can reduce prejudice and encourage positive

intergroup behavior.”

114

Imagined contact results in significantly re-

duced intergroup bias in attitudes, emotions, intentions, and behav-

ior, and the effect was significant across a broad range of target

outgroups and contexts.

115

The effect was equally strong for explicit

and implicit attitude measures. Not surprisingly, the effect was

stronger when participants were instructed to elaborate on the con-

text within which the imagined interaction took place. “The

imagined contact effect was also stronger for children than for adults,

supporting the proposition that imagined contact is a potentially key

component of educational strategies aiming to promote positive social

change.”

116

Media Contact

The extent to which bias can be reduced via media contact with

outgroup members has not been fully studied

117

even though there is

substantial overlap between this approach to bias reduction and the

strategy of promoting empathy and perspective taking.

For example, in one study, viewing a documentary about the life

and death of a prominent gay politician had a significant and positive

effect on the attitudes of participants toward gay men.

118

Another

researcher, however, found that media contact was less impactful

than person-to-person contact in reducing bias.

119

In that study,

however, the media images to which participants had been exposed

from an early age contained an abundance of negative stereotypes of

outgroup members.

120

113.

See generally

Eleanor Miles & Richard J. Crisp,

A Meta-Analytic Test of the

Imagined Contact Hypothesis

, 17 G

. P

ROCESSES

& I

NTERGROUP

ELS

. 3 (2013).

114.

Id.

at 3.

115.

See id.

116.

See id.

117.

See

Elizabeth Levy Paluck et al.,

Prejudice Reduction: Progress and Chal-

lenges,

72 A

. R

. P

SYCH

. 533, 536 (2021).

118.

See

Ellen D. B. Riggle et al.,

The Impact of “Media Contact” on Attitudes To-

ward Gay Men

, 31 J. H

OMOSEXUALITY

55, 59 (2010). The film was the 88-minute Os-

car-winning documentary, “The Times of Harvey Milk.” Milk was one of the first

openly gay elected officials in the United States.

Id.

119.

See

Ramasubramanian,

supra

note 13, at 54.

120.

Id.

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In another study, a researcher examined the impact of two radio

programs in war-torn Rwanda in 2009 (radio being the most impor-

tant form of mass media at that time in Rwanda).

121

One of the pro-

grams—a soap opera—conveyed positive messages about intergroup

contact, while the other program (a soap opera about health issues)

conveyed no messages about intergroup contact.

122

Study partici-

pants who were asked to listen to the first of these programs exper-

ienced an increase in positive attitudes about intergroup contact, but

there was no change in their personal beliefs regarding prejudice, vio-

lence, and trauma.

123

Stereotype Negation / Replacement

This section describes a sixth type of bias-reducing intervention:

stereotype negation and replacement. As noted in Part I of this arti-

cle, unconscious bias has two components: (a) attitudes and (b) ste-

reotypes. Attitudes can be positive, negative, or neutral, whereas a

stereotype “is a specific trait that is probabilistically associated with

a category,” as explained by researcher Jerry Kang.

124

Kang uses the

example of dogs and cats: people may have positive or negative atti-

tudes about dogs and cats (e.g., liking vs. disliking them), and they

might also have stereotypes about them (e.g., loyal vs. aloof).

125

applied to people, stereotypes are usually unwelcome, even if they are

positive, because they implicitly deny the individuality of the person

being stereotyped. Negative stereotypes are even more unwelcome

because they are commonly used to marginalize or oppress people

stereotypically associated with a trait. Katharine Bartlett expressed

it succinctly: “Stereotypes are categories that constrain and shape

what a person believes about, and expects from, other people.”

126

The sections that follow address (1) the extent to which stereo-

types are malleable, (2) techniques for raising awareness of stereo-

types, and (3) strategies for counteracting or eliminating stereotypes.

121.

See generally

Elizabeth L. Paluck,

Reducing Intergroup Prejudice and Con-

flict Using the Media: A Field Experiment in Rwanda

, 96 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

SYCH

. 574 (2009).

122.

See id.

at 577.

123.

See id.

at 582–83.

124. Jerry Kang,

What Judges Can Do About Implicit Bias

, 57 C

. R

. 78, 78

(2021).

125.

Id.

at 78–79.

126. Bartlett,

supra

note 60, at 1908.

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Malleability of Stereotypes

One of the challenges in managing stereotypes is that they are a

form of “automatic” thinking: they spring to mind even if they re-

present a view that our conscious minds find abhorrent. Researcher

Irene Blair summarizes one aspect of the problem of malleability as

follows: “[T]he belief that automatic associations are deep seated and

impervious to strategic efforts [to dislodge them] has contributed to

the idea that such associations represent people’s true attitudes.”

127

However, a large body of research summarized by Blair estab-

lishes the malleability of stereotypes—the ability of individuals to

suppress or avoid the activation of a learned stereotype when

presented, or interacting, with someone from the target group.

128

The tools for doing so arise from “(a) perceivers’ motivation to main-

tain a positive self-image or have positive relationships with others,

(b) perceivers’ strategic efforts to reduce stereotypes or promote

counterstereotypes, (c) perceivers’ focus of attention, and (d) contex-

tual cues.”

129

Raising Awareness of Stereotypes

The automaticity of stereotypical thinking and its conformity to

prevailing norms can sometimes make stereotypes invisible. Re-

searchers have found the use of certain riddles, like the one below, to

be useful in alerting individuals to these invisible stereotypes:

A father and his son driving together in their car have a

terrible car accident. The father dies upon impact. The son is

rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and is immediately

brought to the operating table. The doctor takes a quick look at

him and says that a specialist is needed. The specialist comes,

looks at the young man on the operating table and proclaims, I

cannot operate on him, he is my son.

130

Who is the specialist? The answer, of course, is the “young man’s

mother.”

131

But in a 2004 study that included both male and female

participants, only 32% were able to provide the correct answer,

127. Irene V. Blair,

The Malleability of Automatic Stereotypes and Prejudice

, 6

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. R

. 242, 243 (2002).

128.

Id.

at 244–47.

129.

Id.

at 243. See also Aiden P. Gregg et al.,

Easier Done Than Undone: Asym-

metry in the Malleability of Implicit Preferences

, 90 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 1,

14-17 (2006).

130.

See

Heidrun Stoeger et al.,

What is a Specialist? Effects of the Male Concept of

a Successful Academic Person on Performance in a Thinking Task

, 46 P

SYCH

. S

. 514,

515 (2004).

131.

Id.

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whereas 80% provided the correct answer when the genders of the

parents were reversed.

132

Other researchers have used several other

gender-stereotype riddles in their studies

133

and reported that many

of the participants described themselves as “free of stereotyping, but

the demonstration opened their eyes to how influential stereotypes

can be on their cognitions and behaviors.”

134

Kawakami et al. (2007) tested a stereotyping intervention in a

simulated hiring experiment in which an applicant was seeking a su-

pervisory position that required leadership and managerial skills.

135

The (fictitious) applicants included both men and women.

136

In the

experimental arm of the study, participants took a training designed

to raise awareness of male and female stereotypes; a control group

had no such training.

137

Not surprisingly, the first group hired sub-

stantially more women than the second.

138

“Training and correction

processes not only influenced general decisions to hire or not hire a

male or a female candidate for a leadership position but also influ-

enced the extent to which particular gender traits were ascribed to

men and women” during the hiring process.

139

Counteracting or Replacing Stereotypes

A well-tested technique for counteracting the effects of stereo-

types, including internalized stereotypes, is the use of counter-stereo-

typic images. For example, a 2010 study by Good et al. looked at the

effect of gender stereotypic and counter-stereotypic images in science

132.

See

Jeanine Lee McHugh Skorinko,

Riddle Me This: Using Riddles that Vio-

late Gender Stereotypes to Demonstrate the Pervasiveness of Stereotypes

, 17 P

SYCH

EARNING

& T

EACHING

194, 195 (2018) (citations omitted);

see also

Eimear E. Finne-

gan et al.,

Counter-Stereotypical Pictures as a Strategy for Overcoming Spontaneous

Gender Stereotypes

, 6 F

RONTIERS

SYCH

. 1 (2015) (citing Jane Oakhill et al.,

Immedi-

ate Activation of Stereotypical Gender Information

, 33 M

EMORY

& C

OGNITION

972

(2005)).

133.

See, e.g.

, Jeanine Lee McHugh Skorinko,

supra

note 132.

134.

Id.

at 205.

135.

See generally

Kerry Kawakami et al.,

The Impact of Counterstereotypic Train-

ing and Related Correction Processes on the Application of Stereotypes

, 10 G

ROCESSES

& I

NTERGROUP

ELATIONS

139 (2007).

136.

Id.

at 142.

137.

Id.

138.

Id.

at 146.

139.

Id.

at 148.

See also

Kerry Kawakami et al.,

Just Say No (to Stereotyping):

Effects of Training in the Negation of Stereotypic Associations on Stereotype Activa-

tion

, 78 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 871 (2000); Mark Graham et al.,

Science

Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students

, 109 P

ROC

. N

’

CAD

. S

16474 (2012); Frances Trix & Carolyn Psenka,

Exploring the Color of Glass: Letters of

Recommendation for Female and Male Medical Faculty

, 14 D

ISCLOSURE

& S

’

191

(2003).

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textbooks for high school students.

140

The results showed that “fe-

male students had higher comprehension after viewing counter-ster-

eotypic images (female scientists) than after viewing stereotypic

images (male scientists). Male students had higher comprehension

after viewing stereotypic images than after viewing counter-stereo-

typic images.”

141

Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001) examined whether exposure to

pictures of admired people and disliked people (some White, some

Black, some older, and some younger) would influence implicit or ex-

plicit attitudes based on race or age.

142

The researchers found that

exposure to images of admired Black individuals (for example, Denzel

Washington) and disliked White individuals (for example, Jeffrey

Dahmer) reduced unconscious bias against Blacks.

143

They likewise

found that exposure to images of admired older people (for example,

Mother Teresa) and disliked younger people (for example, Tonya Har-

ding) reduced unconscious bias against older people.

144

Interest-

ingly, however, these interventions did not affect

explicit

racial or

age-related biases.

145

Three other studies on counter-stereotyping strategies are worth

noting. First, Blair et al. (2001) investigated a strategy based on fo-

cused mental imagery.

146

Using both men and women as study par-

ticipants, researchers found a reduction in gender-based stereotypes

after asking people to imagine what a strong woman is like, why she

is considered strong, what she is capable of doing, and what kinds of

140.

See generally

Jessica J. Good et al.,

The Effects of Gender Stereotypic and

Counter-Stereotypic Textbook Images on Science Performance

, 150 J. S

. P

SYCH

. 132

(2010).

141.

Id.

at 132–33.

142.

See generally

Nilanjana Dasgupta & Anthony Greenwald,

On the Malleability

of Automatic Attitudes: Combating Automatic Prejudice With Images of Admired and

Disliked Individuals

, 81 J. P

ERSONALITY AND

. P

SYCH

. 800 (2001) (hereinafter

“Dasgupta and Greenwald”).

See also

Finnegan et. al.,

supra

note 132 (exposure to

counter-stereotypical pictures is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous gen-

der stereotype biases); Nilanjana Dasgupta & Shaki Asgari,

Seeing is Believing: Expo-

sure to Counterstereotypic Women Leaders and its Effect on the Malleability of

Automatic Gender Stereotyping

, 40 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 642 (2004) (explain-

ing how local environments shape women’s unconscious beliefs about their ingroup);

Miglena Sternadori,

Empathy May Curb Bias: Two Studies of the Effects of News Sto-

ries on Implicit Attitudes Toward African Americans and Native Americans

, 9 C

ON-

TEMP

. R

EADINGS

L. & S

. J

UST

. 11 (2017).

143.

See

Dasgupta and Greenwald,

supra

note 142, at 802, 807.

144.

Id.

145.

Id.

at 808.

146.

See

Blair,

supra

note 127, at 245–46, 249.

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hobbies and activities she enjoys.

147

Significantly, the stereotype-re-

duction effect was not found in participants who were simply asked to

suppress any gender stereotypes they might have and “avoid making

associations between females and weakness.”

148

Second, Gawronski et al. (2008) provided two types of training to

study participants.

149

The first group was trained to negate stereo-

type-congruent information; the second group was trained to affirm

stereotype-

congruent information. The results showed that train-

ing in the affirmation of counterstereotypes led to a reduction in the

activation of stereotypes and negative evaluations.

150

In contrast,

“extended training in the negation of stereotypes enhanced rather

than reduced the activation of stereotypes and negative

evaluations.”

151

Third, Bodenhausen et al. (1994) reported discouraging findings

about a “rebound” effect—the resilience of stereotypic attitudes after

a period of training to counteract them.

152

A similar caution was re-

ported by Finnegan et al. (2015), in a study designed to counteract

stereotypes: “[T]he processing of stereotype incongruent pairings

rarely achieved the same level of effortlessly fast and accurate re-

sponding as that of stereotype congruent and neutral pairings. . . .

Thus, it appears that gender biases associated with social and occu-

pational role nouns are deeply ingrained and difficult to

overcome.”

153

Mindfulness

A seventh method for reducing unconscious bias is mindfulness.

A study by Lueke and Gibson (2014) examined whether practicing

mindfulness meditation can decrease unconscious outgroup bias.

154

147. Irene V. Blair et al.,

Imagining Stereotypes Away: The Moderation of Implicit

Stereotypes Through Mental Imagery

, 81 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 828, 830

(2001).

148.

Id.

at 834.

149.

See generally

Bertram Gawronski et al.,

When “Just Say No” is Not Enough:

Affirmation Versus Negation Training and the Reduction of Automatic Stereotype Ac-

tivation

, 44 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 370 (2008).

150.

See id.

at 375.

151.

. at 370.

152.

See generally

Macrae Bodenhausen et al.,

Out of Mind but Back in Sight:

Stereotypes on the Rebound

, 67 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 808 (1994).

153.

See

Finnegan et al.,

supra

note 132, at 13.

154.

See generally

Adam Lueke & Bryan Gibson,

Mindfulness Meditation Reduces

Implicit Age and Race Bias: The Role of Reduced Automaticity of Responding

, 6 S

SYCH

. & P

ERSONALITY

. 284 (2014).

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Mindfulness meditation is a technique in which the meditating per-

son concentrates on the present and refrains from judging their emo-

tions and thoughts, instead viewing them objectively as mental

events—almost as if one were observing the weather.

155

This prac-

tice “inhibits the natural tendency toward reaction and automatic

evaluation.”

156

The researchers measured the participants’ baseline

bias using the IAT for race and age. Then one group of participants

listened to a 10-minute meditation “that focused the individual and

made them more aware of their sensations and thoughts in a

nonjudgmental way,” while a second group listened to a neutral audi-

otape about historic events.

157

Both groups then took the race and

age IATs for a second time. The results showed a decrease in implicit

race and age bias in the first group but not in the second.

158

In two other studies, researchers showed that mindfulness train-

ing reduced prejudiced behavior toward the elderly

159

and the handi-

capped.

160

And in a fourth study, a different type of meditation—

loving-kindness meditation—was shown to reduce bias against home-

less people and Black people.

161

This study also suggests that al-

though mindfulness meditation may increase cognitive control (a

useful ability for overriding the visceral reactions that can be caused

155. Mindfulness exercises, Mayo Clinic, https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifes-

tyle/consumer-health/in-depth/mindfulness-exercises/art-20046356,

archived at

https://perma.cc/4AQ7-KDH9. (“Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you fo-

cus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment, with-

out interpretation or judgment.”).

156. Lueke & Gibson,

supra

note 154, at 284.

157.

Id.

at 288.

158.

See id

. at 288–89.

159.

See generally

Maja Djikic et al.,

Reducing Stereotyping Through Mindfulness:

Effects on Automatic Stereotype-Activated Behaviors

, 15 J. A

DULT

. 106 (2008).

160.

See generally

Ellen J. Langer et al.,

Decreasing Prejudice by Increasing Dis-

crimination

, 49 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 113 (1985).

161.

See

Yoona Kang et al.,

The Nondiscriminating Heart: Lovingkindness Medi-

tation Training Decreases Implicit Intergroup Bias

, 143 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

SYCH

. 1306, 1306 (2014) (“Lovingkindness meditation is intended to cultivate warm

and friendly feelings toward the self and others.”).

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by implicit bias),

162

“loving-kindness meditation may cultivate feel-

ings of connectedness by creating new positive associations.”

163

Combining Strategies

In our view, one of the most important frontiers of bias-reduction

research and intervention is measuring the impact of multiple con-

current techniques and determining how frequently these combina-

tions of techniques should be repeated.

Devine et al. (2013) developed a habit-breaking intervention in

which participants were asked to apply race-bias reduction strategies

during 12 consecutive weeks.

164

The authors wanted to investigate

whether it was possible to engage in a voluntary, multifaceted, and

self-regulatory process aimed to minimize implicit bias over a longer

period.

165

Participants who reported using the strategies demon-

strated a greater awareness and concern about discrimination as well

as a substantial decrease in unconscious bias.

166

The intervention

concentrated on five techniques that the participants were asked to

apply autonomously for 12 weeks: (1) stereotype replacement, (2)

counter-stereotypic imaging, (3) individuation, (4) perspective taking,

and (5) increasing opportunities for contact, such as looking for op-

portunities to engage in positive encounters with members of a stere-

otyped group.

167

Notably, the participants were free to choose for

themselves which of those techniques they wanted to apply in their

daily lives. However, the program stressed that the techniques are

mutually reinforcing. “For example, contact with counter-stereotypic

162. Based on research showing mindfulness to be an effective debiasing strategy,

Dr. Pat Croskerry has called for more mindfulness training in the medical field,

where the diagnostic failure rate by doctors is estimated to be 10 to 15% with the

principal reason being cognitive biases. Therefore, she urges that all clinicians should

learn and practice mindfulness and self-reflection strategies: “All clinicians should

develop the habit of conducting regular and frequent surveillance of their intuitive

behavior.” Pat Croskerry,

From Mindless to Mindful Practice — Cognitive Bias and

Clinical Decision Making

, 368 N

. J. M

. 2445, 2448 (2013). See also discus-

sion in Part II(B) regarding fMRI-measured responses to other-race photos in the

amygdala and prefrontal cortex.

163. Kang et al.,

supra

note 161, at 1311.

164.

See

Patricia G. Devine et al.,

Long-Term Reduction in Implicit Race Bias: A

Prejudice Habit-Breaking Intervention

, 48 J. E

. S

. P

SYCH

. 1267, 1267 (2012).

165.

See id.

166.

See id.

at 1276.

167.

Id.

at 1270–71. The study did not record the individuals’ choice of strategies.

Therefore, one limitation of this study was not knowing which of the five techniques

correlated with the greatest impact on bias reduction.

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others provides grist for counter-stereotypic imaging as well as pro-

viding opportunities for individuation, perspective taking and stereo-

type replacement. Similarly, perspective taking can enhance

stereotype replacement and individuation by encouraging people to

see the world from the eyes of a stigmatized other.”

168

The authors reported that “participants with more concern about

discrimination at week 2 had particularly low levels of implicit bias

at weeks 4 and 8. This effect remained from week 4 to week 8 . . .

indicating that people high in concern about discrimination at week 2

retained the reductions in IAT[-measured] bias 8 weeks after the

intervention.”

169

Burgess et al. (2007) proposed an intervention designed for medi-

cal professionals based on their review of numerous bias-reduction

studies.

170

They urged healthcare providers to combine several strat-

egies focused on reducing racial bias: “(1) enhance internal motiva-

tion to reduce bias, while avoiding external pressure; (2) increase

understanding about the psychological basis of bias; (3) enhance

providers’ confidence in their ability to successfully interact with so-

cially dissimilar patients; (4) enhance emotional regulation skills;

and (5) improve the ability to build partnerships with patients.”

171

Carnes et al. (2015) conducted a study (discussed in Part III(A))

in which faculty from 46 academic departments at the University of

Wisconsin were provided with training encouraging the combined use

of several strategies to counteract gender bias.

172

The researchers

found that unconscious gender bias was reduced when participants

were asked to use techniques like replacing a gender stereotype with

accurate information, positive counter-stereotype imaging, imagining

in detail what it is like to be a person in a stereotyped group, and

meeting with “counter-stereotypic exemplars, such as senior women

faculty.”

173

Finally, a 2016 meta-analysis of 260 studies of diversity training

programs found that “the positive effects of diversity training were

168.

Id.

at 1270.

169.

Id.

at 1273.

170.

See generally

Diana J. Burgess et al.,

Reducing Racial Bias Among Health

Care Providers: Lessons from Social-Cognitive Psychology

, 22 J. G

. I

NTERNAL

882 (2007).

171.

Id.

at 882.

172.

See generally

Carnes et al.,

supra

note 47.

173.

Id.

at 223.

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greater when training was complemented by other diversity initia-

tives, targeted to both awareness and skills development, and con-

ducted over a significant period of time.”

174

Assessment

If there were a single “magic bullet” to neutralize unconscious

bias, an article of this kind would be unnecessary, and the problem of

unconscious bias would be solved by now. In our view, the bias-re-

duction techniques described in this section of the article are moving

in a promising direction to the extent that they examine the potential

effects of long-term interventions that utilize a variety of techniques

in combination.

However, most of the meta-analyses of bias-reduction strategies

have looked at

individual

interventions and have found unimpressive

impacts.

In 2009, Paluck and Green published the results of their review

of 985 studies of bias reduction strategies.

175

They concluded that

“psychologists are a long way from demonstrating the most effective

ways to reduce prejudice,” and even those interventions that reduce

prejudice in isolated laboratory settings have not been proven to work

in the field.

176

In 2014, Lai et al. analyzed 17 laboratory interventions aimed at

reducing implicit racial bias and found that eight of them were effec-

tive.

177

The most effective interventions involved stereotype replace-

ment/negation (discussed in Part III(F)). None of the examined

interventions reduced explicit racial bias, and, interestingly, “inter-

vention effectiveness extended only weakly to . . . Asians and

Hispanics.”

178

In a follow-up study published in 2016 involving 6,321 total par-

ticipants, Lai et al. compared the effectiveness of nine interventions

to reduce implicit racial preferences over time to observe how long

the change lasts.

179

All chosen interventions instantly reduced im-

plicit bias and were effective at prompting short-term malleability in

implicit biases; however, none were effective after a delay of several

174. Katerina Bezrukova et al.,

A Meta-Analytical Integration of Over 40 Years of

Research on Diversity Training Evaluation

, 142 P

SYCH

. B

ULL

. 1227, 1227 (2016).

175.

See generally

Paluck & Green,

supra

note 18.

176.

Id.

at 360.

177.

See

Calvin K. Lai et al.,

Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: I. A Compara-

tive Investigation of 17 Interventions

, 143 J. E

. P

SYCH

.: G

. 1765, 1766 (2014).

178.

Id.

179.

See generally

Calvin K. Lai et al.,

Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: II.

Intervention Effectiveness Across Time

, 145 J. E

. P

SYCH

.: G

. 1001 (2016).

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hours to several days.

180

As in the other meta-analyses, the re-

searchers found little evidence for long-term implicit preference

change, even just a few days after the intervention. The authors con-

cluded that it is “possible that brief interventions can be effective, but

only when administered repeatedly over time in a spaced learning

schedule.”

181

FitzGerald et al. (2019) conducted a systematic review of 47 bias-

reduction experiments conducted on adults from May 2005 through

April 2015.

182

The interventions were grouped in categories similar

to those in Part III of this article. Several types of interventions

showed a high level of effectiveness: counteracting stereotypes, pro-

moting identification with an outgroup, and forming an intention to

be unbiased.

183

However, some of the interventions produced incon-

sistent results; for example, appealing to egalitarian values was ef-

fective in only four out of eight experiments, and perspective-taking

was effective in only four out of eleven experiments.

184

The authors

suggested that further research is needed in order to determine what

factors had caused each of the interventions to be effective in some

settings but not in others.

185

The FitzGerald review also showed that even when one-shot

bias-reduction interventions are immediately effective, those effects

often do not last. The authors note:

To some extent, the ineffectiveness of interventions after a

longer time period is to be expected. Implicit biases have been

partly formed through repeated exposure to associations: their

very presence hints at their being not only generated but also

maintained by culture. Any counter-actions, even if effective im-

mediately, would then themselves be rapidly countered since

participants remain part of their culture from which they re-

ceive constant inputs. To tackle this,

interventions may need to

be repeated frequently

or somehow be constructed so that they

create durable changes in the habits of participants. More in-

depth interventions where participants follow a whole course or

interact frequently with the outgroup have been successful.

186

180.

See id.

at 1001.

181.

Id.

at 1013.

182.

See generally

Chlo¨e FitzGerald et al.,

Interventions Designed to Reduce Im-

plicit Prejudices and Implicit Stereotypes in Real World Contexts: A Systematic Re-

view

, 7 BMC P

SYCH

. 1 (2019).

183.

See id.

at 7.

184.

Id.

185.

See id.

at 10.

186.

Id.

at 9 (emphasis added) (citing Lai et al.,

supra

note 179; Rudman et al.,

supra

note 45; Shook & Fazio,

infra

note 193).

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Finally, in 2019, Forscher et al. synthesized evidence from 492

studies, involving 87,418 participants, to assess the effectiveness of

various interventions designed to reduce implicit bias.

187

They found

that implicit measures can be changed, but that long-term effects are

often weak or non-existent, that there was little change in explicit

bias,

188

and that interventions “generally produced trivial changes in

behavior.”

189

Significantly, they found that procedures that com-

bined sets of strategies and invoked goals or motivations produced

the largest positive changes in implicit bias.

190

One way of looking at the assessments described above is pro-

foundly discouraging: these reviews and meta-analyses confirm what

common sense tells us—unconscious bias resists change. Another

way of looking at them is that we are merely at the beginning of an

era in which bias-reduction research, and the tools for measuring un-

conscious bias, are being refined. In particular, we are just beginning

to see combinations of interventions, utilized over an extended period

of time (as in the Devine study described in Part III(H)), evaluated in

the laboratory. And the next frontier—measuring the impact of long-

term, multi-faceted interventions in the field—has barely begun.

IV. P

RACTICAL

PPLICATIONS

While acknowledging the nascent state of scientific knowledge

about the effectiveness of bias-reduction strategies, we believe that

much can be done with the knowledge we already have.

There are already notable real-life examples of implicit bias re-

duction. For instance, in an experiment in India, some positions in

several village councils were randomly selected to be held by wo-

men.

191

Researchers found that men in villages that had female

council leaders held weaker implicit gender biases than men living in

villages where a gender quota was deployed.

192

In an experiment in-

volving college roommates, researchers found that, having an out-

group roommate decreased implicit prejudice after only one quarter

of a school year.

193

Another college-based study demonstrated that

187.

See

Patrick S. Forscher et al.,

A Meta-Analysis of Procedures to Change Im-

plicit Measures

, 117 J. P

ERSONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. 522, 522 (2019).

188.

See id.

at 541–42.

189.

. at 522.

190.

See id.

191.

See generally

Lori Beaman at al.,

Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce

Bias?

, 124 Q.J. E

CON

. 1497 (2009).

192.

Id.

at 1497–501.

193.

See

Natalie J. Shook & Russell H. Fazio,

Interracial Roommate Relationships:

An Experimental Field Test of the Contact Hypothesis

, 19 P

SYCH

. S

. 717, 717 (2008).

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undergraduate women who had more contact with female instructors

showed less implicit gender bias than women who had more contact

with male instructors during their first year.

194

As noted in Part III, our review of bias-reduction research

showed that many of the studies—especially those conducted in the

United States—focus on race and gender biases, but we saw no evi-

dence that these techniques would not be effective in addressing

other types of biases.

195

The following sections describe two types of strategies (individ-

ual and institutional) for reducing implicit bias and techniques for

counteracting the effects of implicit bias.

Individual Action

With regard to actions that individuals can undertake on their

own—outside of any workplace or other institution—the research de-

scribed in Part III of this article suggests that several related strate-

gies can be effective—though for continued success, individuals must

maintain their use over time:

• Increasing awareness of bias and the impacts of bias

• Increasing motivation to counteract bias

• Individuation

• Perspective-taking / empathy

• Contact

• Stereotype negation / replacement

• Mindfulness

Each of these strategies plays a role in the proposed initiatives de-

scribed below.

Individual Study and Broadening of Awareness

Each of us is, to some degree, the curator of our own exposure to

the world—both through direct experience (such as travel) or vicari-

ous experience (such as literature, films, music, theater, social media,

news, etc.). Recent decades have seen an explosion of books, articles,

and videos that explain how bias works, where it comes from, and its

194.

See

Nilanjana Dasgupta & Shaki Asgari,

Seeing is Believing: Exposure to

Counterstereotypic Women Leaders and its Effects on the Malleability of Automatic

Gender Stereotyping

, 40 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 642, 654 (2004).

195.

See, e.g.

, Maria Nivalda de Carvalho-Freitas & Sofia Stathi,

Reducing Work-

place Bias Toward People with Disabilities with the Use of Imagined Contact

, 47 J.

PPLIED

. P

SYCH

. 256, 256 (2017) (reporting increased workplace support for the

rights of people with disabilities after an imagined-contact intervention).

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insidious impact.

196

Resource lists on implicit bias abound on the In-

ternet. In our view, learning more about bias, and especially its ef-

fects, is likely to increase our motivation to counteract it, because

those effects are pernicious and contrary to the moral foundations of

a society that espouses equal treatment.

One of the considerations in curating our experience of the world

is whether we create opportunities to learn about people three-di-

mensionally—as individuals.

197

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ad-

dresses this consideration in her brilliant TED talk, “The Danger of

the Single Story.”

198

There, she describes the experience of seeing

the household employees at her parents’ home in Nsukka, a univer-

sity town where she was raised in Nigeria, as simply “poor” rather

than having a variety of other characteristics. After visiting the em-

ployees in a village outside of Nsukka and seeing the artistic items

they created there, her view of them broadened.

It is beyond the scope of this article to list all of the available

resources of this kind, but several are worth mentioning as examples.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

by Anne Fadiman tells

the story of Hmong immigrants living in California who struggle to

understand the medical and child-welfare norms for treatment of

their epileptic daughter whom they view as possessing a spiritual

gift.

199

Or for three-dimensional insight into Black experience in the

United States, see

Between the World and Me

, by Ta-Nehisi

Coates;

200

for the experience of a gay Asian-American,

Covering

, by

196.

See generally

IAS

(Finish Line Features 2016) (award-winning documentary

by Robin Hauser) (information available at https://www.finishlinefeaturefilms.com/

bias,

archived at

https://perma.cc/4G8G-6LA8; P

RAGYA

GARWAL

, S

WAY

: U

NRAVELLING

NCONSCIOUS

IAS

(2020); J

ENNIFER

BERHARDT

, B

IASED

: U

NCOVERING THE

IDDEN

REJUDICE THAT

HAPES

HAT

, T

HINK AND

(2019); B

ANAJI

& G

REENWALD

supra

note 23; W

ILKERSON

supra

note 36.

197.

See

Section III(C) (discussing individuation as a bias-reduction strategy).

198. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of the Single Story, T

(2009),

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_

story?language=EN,

archived at

https://perma.cc/F8PN-M5KB.

199.

See generally

NNE

ADIMAN

, T

PIRIT

ATCHES

OU AND

ALL

OWN

A H

MONG

HILD

, H

MERICAN

OCTORS

AND THE

OLLISION OF

ULTURES

(1997). Fadiman’s book is on the required-reading list for many medical schools, so-

cial work programs, and other professional schools.

200.

See generally

-N

EHISI

OATES

, B

ETWEEN THE

ORLD AND

(2015).

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Kenji Yoshino.

201

Or for a television program comedically illustrat-

ing the everyday life of Muslim Americans, see “Ramy,” created by

Ramy Youssef.

202

The point is that immersing ourselves in literature and media of

this kind not only contributes to our seeing people who are unlike us

three-dimensionally—as individuals, rather than as stereotypes—

but that it also enables us to experience points of commonality, thus

breaking down the barriers of “otherness” that might otherwise re-

main in place. For example, in “Ramy,” viewers will see that whether

you are Muslim or not, children are easily embarrassed by their par-

ents’ peculiarities.

203

Seeing each other more three-dimensionally

can also assist in the breaking down of stereotypes. And engaging in

this type of immersion improves our perspective-taking ability.

Expansion of Social Contacts

The resources described above provide

indirect

exposure to the

life and experiences of people who are members of historically

marginalized groups. The research described in the previous section

of this article suggests that direct contact with members of such

groups can also be a powerful antidote to bias. However, it is impor-

tant to bear in mind that the beneficial effects of such contacts can be

dependent upon a number of factors, such as whether the contact in-

volves people of equal ‘status,’ and whose connection involves the pur-

suit of common goals and intergroup cooperation.

204

Just as we can be curators of our indirect experience of the world

(such as through literature and other media), we can also be curators

of our direct experience and seek out opportunities to engage with

people from groups that are subjected to bias.

Such opportunities may arise in our professional lives and in our

social lives. In many professions, it is common to form discussion,

support, or peer-supervision groups. This is especially true for psy-

chotherapists, but the formation of such groups could benefit people

201.

See generally

ENJI

OSHINO

, C

OVERING

: T

IDDEN

SSAULT ON OUR

IVIL

IGHTS

(2007).

202.

Ramy

(Hulu 2019), https://www.hulu.com/series/ramy-4bcb6c3a-3d9a-4d49-

b8e0-57fb7de9c8d6.

203.

See also

Carl Pickhardt,

When Parents Embarrass Their Adolescent

, P

SYCH

ODAY

(November 19, 2012), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/surviving-

your-childs-adolescence/201211/when-parents-embarrass-their-adolescent,

archived

https://perma.cc/KSG7-5VPD.

204.

See

discussion in Section III(E)(1).

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in many professions and occupations, and creates an opportunity for

outreach, connection, diversity, and inclusion.

205

Wholly apart from our professional lives, individuals sometimes

form book groups, film groups, parent support groups, or activity-re-

lated affinity groups (such as a hiking or cycling club, a yoga class, or

a meditation group). Each of these types of social activities creates

an opportunity for inclusion and greater contact with people with

identities different from our own. Obviously, in seeking such diver-

sity and inclusion, it is necessary to avoid objectifying people and

treating their involvement as solely for the purpose of broadening the

perspectives of those who are doing the inviting.

Indeed, the research cited in Part III(E) suggests that creating

diverse groups of the kind described above need not be explicitly mo-

tivated by the goal of bias reduction in order to advance those goals.

Like the indirect methods of contact described above, direct contact is

likely to have de-biasing effects because it increases our perspective-

taking, individuation of others, and stereotype reduction—especially

if we make a point of getting to know each other more three-dimen-

sionally in the context of the group activity.

206

Experiential Learning

Individuals can seek out opportunities for experiential learning

about bias-reduction, including opportunities for sharing narratives

of participants’ experiences. In support of this recommendation, we

offer two types of experience that the authors have had as teachers

and trainers.

Helen Winter: I can attest to this from my own experience

and observations as a mediator. Offering a safe space for par-

ticipants, such as refugees and locals, to address stereotypes

and difficult topics with “the other side” without being afraid of

losing face or asking something inappropriate to members of the

205. A personal observation from David Hoffman: For more than twenty years I

have been part of a small, multiracial group of mediators, who share both personal

and professional experiences; the diversity of this group, which was an intentional

element, has profoundly enriched my life and broadened my perspectives about race,

class, religion, sexuality, and gender identity.

206.

See generally

ODD

L. P

ITTINSKY

, U

LUS

HEM

: T

APPING

OSITIVE

OWER OF

IFFERENCE

(2012).

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outgroup, leads to a greater awareness of prejudice and self-re-

ported decrease in bias.

207

“Becoming sensitized to those ste-

reotypes, as well as more conscious as a group that everyone has

biases, is a first crucial step to their reduction.”

208

However,

these findings largely relied on self-reporting. A story-sharing

forum with the purpose of addressing prejudice directly with

members of the outgroup should further explore other measur-

ing mechanisms such as IAT scores.

David Hoffman: My experience in teaching about implicit

bias and bias-reduction strategies to law students persuades me

that the most powerful intervention often involves simply going

around the circle of the classroom, with each student taking a

turn sharing about an experience, a mentor, or something the

student is passionate about. The exercise gives each member of

the class an opportunity to be vulnerable (as they tell their

story) and supportive (as a listener)—with the overall result of

increasing individuation, perspective-taking, and undermining

stereotypes. The experience of being heard can be deepened by

having another student in the circle ask the speaker a question

before the baton is passed to the next speaker. In addition,

roleplaying creates opportunities to “road test” the skills and

knowledge associated with unbiased engagement with

others.

209

Mindfulness

The research about mindfulness described in the previous section

of this article does not establish the precise mechanism by which

meditation has a de-biasing effect. However, the de-biasing effects of

a meditation practice or other mindfulness practice may arise from

an enhanced ability to manage the torrent of fleeting thoughts that

pass through our minds during our waking hours. Some of those

thoughts may be images, memories, attitudes, or fears based on bi-

ases contrary to the egalitarian values that we espouse. Thus, one of

the values of mindfulness is that it slows down our reactions and

gives our conscious anti-bias intentions an opportunity to activate,

207.

See

Helen M. E. Winter et al.,

Psychosocial Peer Mediation as Sustainable

Method for Conflict Prevention and Management Among Refugee Communities in Ger-

many

, 39 C

ONFLICT

ESOL

. Q. 195, 202–04 (2021).

208.

Id.

at 203.

209. The teaching techniques used in this Diversity and Dispute Resolution course

at Harvard Law School are described more fully here: David A. Hoffman,

Teaching

Diversity at Harvard Law School Or: The Education of a Straight, White, Cisgender,

Male, Able-Bodied, Upper-Middle-Class Lecturer on Law

, 27 D

ISP

. R

ESOL

. M

. 24,

25–28 (2021).

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which in turn can support stereotype negation, awareness of bias, in-

dividuation, and perspective-taking.

210

Psychological/Introspection Strategies

All of the techniques for reducing bias described in this article

are psychological strategies in the sense that they are trying to

change, albeit indirectly, how our minds process difference. How-

ever, there’s another avenue available: direct examination of our big-

oted thoughts and feelings through introspection.

Social psychologists have debated the limits of introspection as a

tool for uncovering unconscious bias and counteracting it.

211

It ap-

pears, however, that there are some practical introspection tools—in

addition to those described in Parts III(A) and III(B)—that are worth

considering as methods of surfacing some forms of bias and reducing

them, including a relatively new psychotherapy model, the Internal

Family Systems (“IFS”) model,

212

discussed below.

In a recent talk, law professor and conflict resolution trainer

Nina Meierding described a method that she uses to change negative

attitudes she grew up with about people whose body weight is signifi-

cantly above average.

213

Through self-examination and reflection,

she discovered that she acquired this implicit bias in reaction to nu-

merous deaths in her family from various illnesses, and her focus on

“healthy living.”

214

She found that she could counteract assumptions

about weight gain by creating a mnemonic device—in her case, the

word “IMAGE”—to remind her of some of the factors that can con-

tribute to people weighing more than average:

llness (e.g., hypothy-

roidism),

edication (e.g., insulin),

ccess to healthy foods (i.e., lack

of such access),

enetics, and

nvironment (social or physical).

215

210.

See

ABAT

-Z

INN

, W

HEREVER

, T

HERE

: M

INDFULNESS

EDITATION IN

VERYDAY

IFE

(10th Anniversary ed. 2005), for an excellent discus-

sion about incorporating mindfulness meditation into everyday life.

211.

See, e.g.

, Bertram Gawronski et al.,

What Do Implicit Measures Tell Us? Scru-

tinizing the Validity of Three Common Assumptions

, 2 P

ERSPECTIVES ON

SYCH

. S

181, 182–84 (2007); Hart Blanton & James Jaccard,

Unconscious Racism: A Concept

in Pursuit of a Measure

, 34 A

. R

. S

OCIO

. 277, 281–84 (2008).

212.

See generally

, Richard Schwartz,

Working with Internalized Racism: From

Shame to Unburdening with IFS

, P

SYCHOTHERAPY

ETWORKER

(Sept./Oct. 2020),

https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/2490/working-with-inter-

nalized-racism/cf2487e2-1fc0-4238-b567-7b8d48032005/oim,

archived at

https://

perma.cc/6U3Y-YAXD.

213. Nina Meierding, Working with Different Perspectives of Reality: How Im-

plicit Bias and Cognitive Barriers Create Obstacles to Settlement, Lecture at the

Ann. Conf. of the Nat’l Ctr for Alt. Disp. Resol. (June 23, 2022).

214.

Id.

215.

Id.

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similar technique that some people use to manage a bias against peo-

ple of above-average weight, but focusing on emotion as opposed to

cognition, is fostering empathy through perspective-taking.

216

These techniques are similar to strategies developed by clini-

cians who use the IFS model,

217

which, in our view, provides one of

the more promising strategies for changing biased attitudes and

counteracting negative stereotypes.

The foundation of the IFS model,

218

which was developed by Dr.

Richard Schwartz, is that our minds have “parts”

219

—subpersonali-

ties that perform different functions in our mind’s internal operating

system. Some of the parts are described in the IFS model as “exiles”:

they hold feelings of inadequacy, shame, fear, or pain.

220

(For exam-

ple, one might have a part that fears rejection by others.) These

parts are “exiled” in the sense that we try to avoid experiencing them

and may try to suppress them.

221

Other parts are called “managers”:

they try to make sense of the world, keep us on track with our day-to-

day responsibilities, and work proactively to keep the exiles from be-

ing triggered.

222

(For example, one might have a part that works

hard to be on time for meetings to avoid criticism or rejection for

keeping another person waiting.) And some parts are called

“firefighters”: they respond, often in extreme and counterproductive

ways, to injuries inflicted on exiles (such as criticism or shaming) by

216.

See, e.g.,

OXANE

, H

UNGER

: A M

EMOIR

) B

ODY

(2017) (providing an

account of how gaining weight was a coping strategy in response to trauma). Thanks

to Leslie Warner for this insight.

217. Although the word “Family” is part of the term “Internal Family Systems,”

the model in not about families per se, but instead about the “family-like” relation-

ships of the parts in each individual.

See

David A. Hoffman,

Mediation, Multiple

Minds, and the Negotiation Within,

16 H

ARV

. N

EGOT

. L. R

. 297, 312 (2011). For

example, an angry part may become active as a means of fending off blame coming

from another person; the angry part causes us to make a counteraccusation to protect

a vulnerable part that feels shame arising from the original accusation. This is simi-

lar to roles that actual family members might play if one family member feels that

another family member is being wrongly accused.

218. For a general introduction to the IFS model,

see

ICHARD

C. S

CHWARTZ

, I

N-

TRODUCTION TO THE

NTERNAL

AMILY

YSTEMS

ODEL

(2001); R

ICHARD

C. S

CHWARTZ

& M

ARTHA

WEEZY

, I

NTERNAL

AMILY

YSTEMS

HERAPY

(2nd ed. 2020).

219. The concept of “parts” does not mean physical structures in the brain, but

rather neural networks. In that sense, referring to parts as having personalities,

agendas, and burdens is more of a metaphor that makes the behavior of these neural

networks comprehensible.

220.

See

ICHARD

C. S

CHWARTZ

& M

ARTHA

WEEZY

, I

NTERNAL

AMILY

YSTEMS

HERAPY

59-61 (2nd ed. 2020).

221.

See id.

222.

See id.

at 33.

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dousing the flames of raw emotion through, e.g., drinking, overeat-

ing, overspending, or with an extreme display of anger.

223

(For ex-

ample, facing painful criticism for keeping someone waiting, a

firefighter part might overreact with an angry outburst about all the

times when the other person acted inconsiderately.)

In addition to all of our many “parts,” the IFS model includes a

concept of our core identity: “Self” energy (which in some wisdom tra-

ditions is called “spirit” or “soul”).

224

Self-energy—which embodies

curiosity, compassion, calm, connectedness, and no agenda other

than healing—is our seat of consciousness, and it can coordinate our

various parts when we are able to access it. The goal of the IFS

model is to be Self-led.

The relevance of the IFS model to implicit bias

225

is that our

managers are accustomed to creating mental shortcuts to make sense

of the world, often by soaking up at an early age messages from

around us (e.g., “People [of x background] typically have low income,

and therefore there must be something wrong with them.”).

226

Other

managerial parts adopt biases to soothe exiles that may feel inade-

quate in some way (e.g., “I may not be exceptionally smart, but at

least I am not [fill in the blank].”).

227

And other managerial parts

may develop avoidant strategies based on fear of embarrassment.

228

The IFS model offers a technique for counteracting such

messages, which builds on awareness strategies discussed in Part

III(A). The IFS model involves accessing Self-energy to engage with

223.

See id.

at 35.

224.

See

Richard C. Schwartz,

Moving from Acceptance Toward Transformation

with Internal Family Systems Therapy

, 69 J. C

LINICAL

SYCH

.: I

ESSION

805, 807

(2013).

225. For a broader discussion of the value of the IFS model in counteracting bias,

see Richard C. Schwartz,

Dealing with Racism: Should We Exorcise or Embrace Our

Inner Bigots?, in

NNOVATIONS AND

LABORATIONS IN

NTERNAL

AMILY

YSTEMS

HER-

APY

(Martha Sweezy & Ellen L. Ziskind eds., 2016); Richard C. Schwartz,

Working

with Internalized Racism: From Shame to Unburdening with IFS

, P

SYCHOTHERAPY

ETWORKER

(September/October 2020), https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/

magazine/article/2490/working-with-internalized-racism/cf2487e2-1fc0-4238-b567-

7b8d48032005/oim,

archived at

https://perma.cc/6QXY-8LVS.

226.

See

Richard C. Schwartz,

Dealing with Racism: Should We Exorcise or Em-

brace Our Inner Bigots? in

NNOVATIONS AND

LABORATIONS IN

NTERNAL

AMILY

YS-

TEMS

HERAPY

126 (Martha Sweezy & Ellen L. Ziskind eds., 2016) (hereinafter

Schwartz,

Dealing with Racism

227.

See id.

at 127.

228.

See id

. at 128 (“This inner pessimist tells me nothing can help less ad-

vantaged people or solve their problems, so I’ll fail if I try.”);

see also

Richard C.

Schwartz,

Working with Internalized Racism: From Shame to Unburdening with IFS

SYCHOTHERAPY

ETWORKER

at 9 (Sept./Oct. 2020) (noting fear of “humiliation that

makes us reluctant to speak out or get close to people of color”).

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the parts that hold onto bigoted messages, bringing both curiosity

and compassion to that engagement. For example, we might ask a

part that holds racially biased attitudes or beliefs, “where did you

acquire those bigoted messages about people of a different race?”

Often, the answer is that these messages were acquired at an early

age—before our conscious minds began critically assessing informa-

tion and perspectives about people of other races.

It may seem counterintuitive to suggest, as the IFS model does,

that compassion for our bigoted parts will help us be less biased. But

trying to

suppress

bigoted parts by shaming them, or denying their

existence, does not prevent them from showing up in our psyches and

behaviors. Instead, updating them with new information and per-

spectives—in a manner similar to Meierding’s—has the potential to

replace the bigoted messages that these parts carry with messages

that embody a more informed awareness of the world.

229

To be suc-

cessful, we need to heal those protective parts “with compassion

rather than contempt.”

230

In an article about his own journey with regard to racism, Dr.

Schwartz describes the inner coalition of racist parts that he

encountered:

I’ll start with the angry scapegoating part [of me that had] the

need to dominate or put others down . . . It was protecting parts

who felt worthless or powerless in the past by making me feel

powerful and better than others. . . .

Another part . . . uses an entitled voice and hates weakness in

my clients, my family members, and me. . . He is jaded and cyni-

cal and rationalizes inaction . . . with explanations for the plight

of those who are less privileged. . . .

[My] inner pessimist tells me nothing can help less advantaged

people [including people of color] or solve their problems . . . He

says I don’t have what it takes to help change anything and I’ll

only display my ignorance if I get involved. . . .

229. For example, one might educate the parts holding bigoted messages about the

headwinds faced by racial minorities in housing, education, employment, and health-

care, among others.

230. Richard C. Schwartz,

Working with Internalized Racism

: From Shame to Un-

burdening with IFS, P

SYCHOTHERAPY

ETWORKER

(Sept./Oct. 2020), https://

www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/2490/working-with-internalized-

racism/cf2487e2-1fc0-4238-b567-7b8d48032005/oim,

archived at

https://perma.cc/

6QXY-8LVS (hereinafter Schwartz,

Working with Internalized Racism

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Denial, the fourth part of this inner racist coalition, is afraid to

let me see how I profit at the expense of others for fear that my

innate compassion will make me do things to lose my advan-

tages, or will trigger my inner judge, which will make me feel

bad about myself.

231

Schwartz points out that he also has an inner

antiracist

coalition,

which is polarized with (i.e., exists in tension with) the racist coali-

tion. That coalition consists of the aforementioned “inner judge,”

which “criticizes me for being racist, sexist, homophobic, or a bad per-

son for some other reason.” Another part “hates injustice . . . it re-

members well the times when I was the victim of bigotry, growing up

[as] a Jew in a Christian environment.” A third part is a “rebel,”

which enjoys battling “established cultural discourses” and “being an

outsider.”

232

According to the IFS model, once these inner protective parts are

identified, it becomes possible to do the additional work of figuring

out what vulnerable, exiled parts are being guarded by the protec-

tors. In other words, “before we can expect [protective parts] to to-

tally disarm, we must heal the wounds they protect.”

233

In his own

internal system, Schwartz identified a fear of judgment: “parts who

are sure that I’ll be abandoned if someone is upset with me.”

234

addition, there are “locked-in memories of pain, . . . feelings of worth-

lessness that make us believe we need to protect our privilege to sur-

vive, . . . feelings of powerlessness that make us want to dominate, . . .

feelings of humiliation that make us reluctant to speak out or get

close to people of color, [and] . . . feelings of shame that make us

apathetic.”

235

Schwartz also points out that this inner work is not inconsistent

with societal work: “[I]t’s not enough for us to do this work individu-

ally. Racism-based bias and injustice is systemic in our institutions.

If we don’t act to counter it, we’re complicit in it.”

236

While the evidence for its value is, at this point, anecdotal,

237

believe the IFS model is an especially promising intervention for bias

231. Schwartz,

Dealing with Racism

supra

note 226, at 124, 127.

232.

Id.

at 128.

233. Schwartz,

Working with Internalized Racism

supra

note 230.

234. Schwartz,

Dealing with Racism

supra

note 226, at 124, 129.

235. Schwartz,

Working with Internalized Racism

supra

note 230.

236.

Id.

237.

See, e.g.

, Schwartz,

Dealing with Racism

supra

note 226, at 130 (“My anti-

racism work in therapy has been transformative.”); The One Inside: An Internal Fam-

ily Systems Podcast,

IFS and The Power of Healing Our Own Racism with Dorothea

Hrossowyc and Ingrid Helander

(Dec. 11, 2020) (providing “personal stories and their

experiences working with their racist parts”), https://theoneinside.libsyn.com/ifs-and-

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reduction, based on the reports of psychotherapists who are using it

in that way. It seems reasonable to believe that a technique that en-

ables individuals to examine, with compassion, the origins of their

biases could hold as much, if not more, promise as techniques that

involve simply becoming aware of our unconscious bias and trying to

instill a motivation to be unbiased.

Stereotype Negation/Replacement

Prof. Mahzarin Banaji, co-creator of the Implicit Association

Test, developed a simple intervention for exposure to counter-stereo-

typic negation / replacement on her office computer:

[S]he created a screensaver for her computer that displays

images of a diverse array of humanity. . . [and] favored images

that represent counterstereotypes. . . [One image] is a drawing

of a construction worker with hard hat on, breast-feeding her

baby. Her aim is to build up associations counter to the stereo-

typic ones that are strengthened in the rest of her daily life

through observation and media exposures.

238

Regardless of whether it is done with images on our computers,

phones, or other electronic devices, images on the walls of spaces we

inhabit, or other media to which we are exposed,

239

each of us can

select the images that surround us and affect our attitudes and the

stereotypes we harbor.

240

Institutional Action

Within companies, educational institutions, faith communities,

non-profit organizations, and community organizations, there are op-

portunities for organizing, promoting, and institutionalizing some of

the individual activities described in the previous section of this arti-

cle on a broader and potentially more impactful scale.

Unconscious Bias Training

The research described in previous sections of this article sup-

ports the conclusion that unconscious bias training (“UBT”) can be

the-power-of-healing-our-own-racism-with-dorothea-hrossowyc-and-ingrid-helander,

archived at

https://perma.cc/JQ3X-54UF.

238. B

ANAJI

& G

REENWALD

supra

note 23, at 151–52.

239.

See

discussion in Section III(E)(4).

240. A gallery of portraits at Boston Law Collaborative, LLC, inspired by Prof.

Banaji’s technique, includes photographs of Maya Angelou, Cesar Chavez, Albert Ein-

stein, Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nel-

son Mandela, Harvey Milk, Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

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effective as a de-biasing strategy, but it may not make much of a dif-

ference if not sustained.

241

Two other factors may impact the effec-

tiveness of UBT: the skill of the trainer(s) and the quality of the

curriculum. Recent years have seen a proliferation of curricula, pro-

grams, and workshop leaders.

Some may wonder how to find a competent trainer for DEI (di-

versity, equity, and inclusion) programming. Due to the lack of uni-

form training programs and uniform certification, we advise finding a

trainer mainly based on personal recommendations. In addition,

there are a number of train-the-trainer programs, which vary consid-

erably in content, scope, and costs; those programs “certify” the par-

ticipants who enroll in their workshops. However, there does not

seem to be a performance-based certification of DEI trainers—at

least not in the United States.

242

As to the curriculum for DEI programs that address the problem

of unconscious bias, one researcher, Barbara Applebaum, contends

that training focused on microaggressions—one of the major impacts

of bias—is likely to be more impactful than a workshop that focuses

primary on bias-reduction.

243

And Katharine Bartlett, noting that

workplace DEI trainings are famously unpopular with employees

(but more so with men than with women), recommends that work-

shops should be “designed to motivate people to do the self-examina-

tion necessary to reduce unconscious bias.”

244

There are conflicting conclusions in the research about whether

UBT is ineffective or counterproductive if it is mandatory, as opposed

to voluntary. These results may be affected by the incentives offered

to employees for participating (as opposed to punishment for failing

to participate), the extent of support for the organization’s anti-bias

goals, the effectiveness of the training itself, and many other factors.

The UK study cited earlier in this article

245

finds scientific support—

albeit not robust—for the use of mandatory UBT in organizations.

Dobbin et al. (2016) compared voluntary and mandatory UBT in 829

midsize and large companies in the U.S. and found that the former

was associated with gains in the number of women and minorities in

241.

See

note 19,

supra,

and accompanying text;

see also

Bodenhausen et al.,

supra

note 152 (noting “rebound effect” after trainings).

242.

See, e.g.

, Simona Iancu,

8 Best Diversity & Inclusion Certifications of 2022

(Blog) (listing eight DEI ‘certifications’ for 2022), https://www.aihr.com/blog/best-di-

versity-and-inclusion-certifications,

archived at

https://perma.cc/9G2V-TGPE.

243.

See

Barbara Applebaum,

Remediating Campus Climate: Implicit Bias Train-

ing is Not Enough

, 38 S

TUD

. P

HIL

. & E

DUC

. 129, 129 (2018).

244.

See

Bartlett,

supra

note 60, at 1962.

245. A

TEWOLOGUN ET AL

, supra note 19.

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management, while the latter was associated with a reduction in

those numbers.

246

One other consideration: there could be legal risk for employers

(and possibly other institutions, such as non-profits and publicly

funded organizations) in offering UBT, if attendance is required. The

political backlash against anti-racist initiatives has led to the pas-

sage of legislation in several U.S. states that explicitly prohibits em-

ployers from requiring employees to participate in diversity

training.

247

However, it appears that the use of

voluntary

trainings

may escape such prohibitions.

248

Discussion Groups and Affinity Groups

One of the ways that organizations can maximize the impact of

UBT is by creating, or by allowing the organization’s resources to be

used for, discussion groups that build on what was learned in the

UBT. These groups can explicitly support the goals of bias reduction

through increasing awareness of bias and its effects and may also—

depending on the diversity of the group—support the goals of increas-

ing intergroup contact, individuation, perspective-taking, and stereo-

type reduction.

Affinity groups, also known as employee resource groups, typi-

cally include people with a common identity. They are intended to

provide mutual support and increased agency for a group (based on

race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) who may feel marginalized

within the organization.

249

We are not aware of research that shows

whether the existence of such groups reduces the prevalence of bias

within an organization, but it seems likely that affinity groups could

help an organization maintain its bias-reduction commitment and

could increase self-agency in promoting change.

250

246.

See

Frank Dobbin & Alexandra Kalev,

Why Diversity Programs Fail

, 94

ARV

. B

. R

. 52, 61 (2016).

247.

See, e.g.

, Marguerite Ward, Florida’s ‘Anti-Woke’ Law Could Scare Off CEOs

from Doing Diversity Training, But There Are Alternatives for Leaders Who Still

Want to Create Inclusive Cultures, I

NSIDER

(July 14, 2022).

248.

See id.

(businesses can choose to “not make their [diversity, equity, and inclu-

sion] trainings mandatory”).

249. Businesses and other organizations that are considering the creation of em-

ployee resource groups should consult counsel about the extent to which there could

be legal risk of the kind described in Michael Paulson,

New 42 Worker Files Bias

Lawsuit Over Diversity Training

, N.Y. T

IMES

, June 9, 2022, at 3.

250. There is support for this view in the research showing that training about

gender bias increased agency among women.

See

Carnes et al.,

supra

note 47 (noting

greater “self-efficacy to engage in gender-equity-promoting behaviors).

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Diverse Teams

Katharine Barnett contends that one of the most robust inter-

ventions to counteract bias is to create opportunities for members of

each ingroup and outgroup to work together collaboratively in an

egalitarian manner:

Collaborative work cultures that minimize status differentials

address the conditions that feed stereotyped thinking. Working

together allows people to get to know each other and motivates

them to form accurate assessments of one another, not stereo-

typed ones. Collaboration puts people in situations in which

they are more likely to share the personal information upon

which common bonds can be formed, and are thus less likely to

stereotype.

251

There is empirical support for this proposition in Van Bavel

(2008), describing experiments that harness the power of ingroup

bias for multiracial teams.

252

The study showed that creating a

group

identity—a novel self-categorization—can override identities

that would have otherwise been more salient, such as race.

253

In a

study by Gaertner and Dovidio (2005), the instruction that the White

study participant would be “on the same team” with a Black team-

mate competing against another team likewise resulted in a reduc-

tion of implicit bias.

254

And another study by Dovidio et al. (2004)

found that White participants had less implicit bias against Black

people when the researchers asked them to imagine that they were

all facing an attack by Al Qaeda.

255

The effect was more pronounced

when participants were told that the intended targets of the sup-

posed attack included both Black and White people in the United

States. The researchers described the study as “confirming evidence

of the potential of manipulations that foster the development of a

common ingroup identity to reduce intergroup bias,” where the “in-

group” is interracial.

256

251. Bartlett,

supra

note 60, at 1962.

252.

See generally

Jay Van Bavel, “A Multi-Level Approach to Intergroup Percep-

tion and Evaluation” (2008) (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto), https://www.

academia.edu/2851348/Novel_Self_categorization_Overrides_Racial_Bias_A_

Multi_level_Approach_to_Intergroup_Perception_and_Evaluation,

archived at

https:/

/perma.cc/USG2-CC3U.

253.

See id.

at 96.

254.

See

Gaertner & Dovidio,

supra

note 67, at 633.

255.

See

Dovidio et al.,

supra

note 83, at 1537.

256.

Id.

at 1547.

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Limitations to the intergroup contact approach include the nov-

elty of such direct confrontation for participants and possible subse-

quent discomfort that needs to be adequately addressed by trained

facilitators. This challenge has been pointed out by one of us

previously:

The [participants] might experience dialogue work as an ex-

tremely new and uncomfortable process, so it is our duty [as trainers]

to navigate the participants through productive dialogue and thereby

allow them to collaborate effectively. It is less about exploring the

facts of a dispute or who did what, and more about mastering the

dynamics of communication, tolerance, and respect.

257

Articulated Commitment to Bias Reduction

When organizations articulate bias-reduction as a goal and take

concrete steps to advance that goal (as opposed to creating an appear-

ance that the stated goal is just ‘window dressing’), they support con-

scious awareness of bias and the effects of bias. Such organizational

goals can also reinforce individual motivation to reduce bias.

Techniques for Counteracting the Impacts of Bias

Despite the growing number of tools available to individuals and

organizations for the reduction of bias, and despite the evidence of a

gradual reduction in certain kinds of bias in recent years,

258

uncon-

scious bias persists and will likely remain a problem for our society

and for the world. Accordingly, bias reduction strategies of the kind

described in this article need to be supplemented with techniques for

counteracting the

impacts

of bias. A few such techniques are de-

scribed below, but the list is not intended to be comprehensive.

Screening

One of the best-known techniques for reducing the impacts of

bias arose from a simple change in the methods used for selecting

musicians for symphony orchestras.

259

Researchers found that by us-

ing a screen to conceal the candidate’s identity from the jury, the

257. Helen Winter,

Working from the Heart,

in M

ORE

USTICE

, M

ORE

EACE

: W

HEN

EACEMAKERS

DVOCATES

62 (T

ACR P

RACTITIONER

’

UIDE

ERIES

) (Susan

Terry ed., 2020);

see also

Winter et al

., supra

note 207.

258.

See

Matthew Hudson,

Implicit Biases toward Race and Sexuality Have De-

creased

, 320 S

. A

. 4 (2019) (showing societal reduction in certain kinds of bias).

259.

See generally

Claudia Goldin & Cecilia Rouse,

Orchestrating Impartiality:

The Impact of “Blind “Auditions on Female Musicians

, 90 A

. E

CON

. R

. 715 (2000).

It is worth noting that the use of resumes without identifying information (such as

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probability that a woman would be hired increased significantly.

260

Using a similar approach, some companies have experimented with

removing information from job applicants’ resumes so that those re-

viewing the applications will be deprived of information about gen-

der, race, and other characteristics.

261

Visibility

Another well-known study—this one in the world of athletics—

showed that public visibility of the effects of bias can change behavior

in a meaningful way.

262

Social scientists tallied the extent to which

the “foul calls” by referees in NBA basketball games correlated with

either the race of the player, the race of the referee, or both. The

results—reported by the New York Times in 2007—showed that (a)

White referees called more fouls proportionately on Black players

than on White players, and (b) to a lesser extent, but still dispropor-

tionately, Black referees called more fouls on White players than

Black players.

263

Despite the widespread media attention generated

by this report, there is no record of the NBA implementing a diversity

awareness training of any kind for its referees. Nevertheless, when

researchers compiled data four years later, they found that the ra-

cially skewed pattern of foul calls had completely disappeared,

264

suggesting that publicly documenting patterns of bias can bring

about meaningful change.

Accountability

Bartlett (2009) contends that accountability is one of the most

robust methods of counteracting the effects of bias.

265

By establish-

ing metrics for recruitment, retention, and promotion of people from

name, gender, nationality, and photograph) does not always produce the intended ef-

fect of creating more opportunity for people from historically marginalized groups.

See

Luc Behaghel et al.,

Discrimination in Hiring and Anonymous CVs in France (CV

Anonymes),

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Blog, https://

www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/discrimination-hiring-and-anonymous-cvs-

france-cv-anonymes,

archived at

https://perma.cc/8NRH-K44R.

260.

See

Goldin & Rouse

, supra

note 259, at 737.

261.

See

Behaghel et al.

supra

note 259.

262.

See generally

Devin G. Pope et al.,

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias,

64 M

GMT

. 4988 (2018).

263.

See id.

at 4988.

264.

Id.

at 4990–91.

265.

See

Bartlett,

supra

note 60, at 1960–64.

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marginalized groups, organizations improve the likelihood that con-

scious intention will override bias in personnel-related decision-mak-

ing.

266

Many organizations also use surveys to measure the extent to

which employees or members of the organization feel marginalized,

so they have a benchmark against which to measure change. A tool

used by Google in its diversity efforts was to eliminate one-person

decision-making in personnel matters, on the theory that having sev-

eral people involved would necessitate the articulation of criteria, so

that conscious factors (rather than unconscious factors) would be

used to evaluate candidates.

267

Checklists are another tool organiza-

tions employ to increase the use of rational criteria rather than un-

conscious bias in decision-making.

268

Many law firms have begun

using the Mansfield Rule to promote accountability in advancement:

requiring firms to include among candidates for governance positions

and other important opportunities at least 30% women, unrepre-

sented minorities, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and lawyers with disabilities.

269

In the world of dispute resolution, a similar initiative, the Ray Corol-

lary, seeks to promote accountability in the selection of mediators

and arbitrators.

270

These techniques are not, of course, mutually ex-

clusive, and complement efforts to reduce individuals’ bias.

266.

See id.

267.

See

Ruth Umoh,

Top Google recruiter: Google uses this ‘shocking’ strategy to

hire the best employees,

CNBC.com (Jan. 10, 2018), https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/10/

google-uses-this-shocking-strategy-to-hire-the-best-employees.html,

archived at

https://perma.cc/4TR5-AKJG.

268.

See generally

Robert H. Ashton,

Effects of Justification and a Mechanical Aid

on Judgment Performance

, 52 O

. B

EHAV

. & H

. D

ECISION

ROCESSES

292 (1992);

ee also

Pradeep Joseph,

Eliminating Disparities and Implicit Bias in Health Care

Delivery by Utilizing a Hub-and-Spoke Model

, 4 R

SCH

. I

DEAS

& O

UTCOMES

e26370

(2018) (checklists reduced race, gender, and ethnic biases in healthcare decision-

making).

269.

See

Dan Roe,

Newest Mansfield Rule Broadens Leadership Hiring Considera-

tions, Pushes for Transparent Advancement and Compensation Policies,

The Ameri-

can Lawyer (Aug. 16, 2022), https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2022/08/16/

newest-mansfield-rule-broadens-leadership-hiring-considerations-pushes-for-trans-

parent-advancement-and-compensation-policies/?slreturn=20220930094746,

archived

https://perma.cc/8GJX-BQXH.

270.

See generally

Homer C. La Rue,

A Call - And a Blueprint - for Change

, 27

ISP

. R

ESOL

. M

. 6 (2021).

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Deliberation

Slowing down decision-making can help in de-biasing it.

271

With

the help of fMRI imaging, cognitive psychologists have identified ar-

eas of the brain that are differentially activated in White subjects

who are exposed to images of Black people (as compared to images of

White people), even when the images were subliminal.

272

A practical

application of this principle can be seen in a case study reported by

Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt involving a social media

application called Nextdoor.com.

273

The application, which links

neighbors with each other in more than 200,000 communities, was

criticized due to the extent of racial profiling in the online posts—for

example, White people posting messages about “suspicious Black

men.” Eberhardt, who was hired as a consultant by NextDoor.com,

recommended changes in the software that would (a) slow down par-

ticipants’ reactions, (b) urge them to consider the possibility of bias,

and (c) require a description of specific behaviors. The company im-

plemented these changes and reduced racial profiling by 75%.

274

V. U

NANSWERED

UESTIONS

In our research for this article, we encountered a number of

questions that warrant further study.

Intersectionality

Like our conscious biases, our unconscious biases are complex

and intersectional. As a result, the use of the IAT and other tools for

measuring unconscious bias needs to be adapted to take into account

the multiple ways in which bias shows up.

275

In the measurement of

271.

See

Jerry Kang et al.,

Implicit Bias in the Courtroom,

59 UCLA L. Rev. 1124,

1177 (2012) (“One way to counter [implicit biases] is to engage in effortful, delibera-

tive processing. But when decisionmakers are short on time or under cognitive load,

they lack the resources necessary to engage in such deliberation.”) (citations omitted).

272.

See

Cunningham et al.,

supra

note 21.

See also

Jordan R. Axt et al.,

The

Judgment Bias Task: A Flexible Method for Assessing Individual Differences in Social

Judgment Biases

, 76 J. E

XPERIMENTAL

. P

SYCH

. 337 (2018) (experimental subjects

produced more biased decisions, based on physical attractiveness bias, when required

to make decisions quickly).

273.

See

Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That

Shapes What We See, Think, And Do 184–88 (2019). Thanks to colleague Audrey Lee

for suggesting this example.

274.

Id.

at 186.

275.

See generally

Kimberle Crenshaw,

Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race

and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory

and Antiracist Politics in

EMINIST

EGAL

HEORY

(Katherine Bartlett ed. 1991).

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bias, it will be important to consider not only the multiple overlap-

ping identities of the people who are facing bias, but also the identi-

ties of those whose bias is being measured. For example, one study

showed more race bias among White males as compared with White

females.

276

And, in a study of doctors’ attitudes about obesity, the

researchers found no difference between the negative attitudes of

doctors compared to those of the general public, but they found that

males generally (and male MDs) had a stronger implicit bias against

overweight individuals as compared with their female

counterparts.”

277

Mind-Body Connections

One intriguing study that we encountered showed that walking

in tandem with a person who is a member of a marginalized group

produced a reduction in unconscious bias.

278

The effect is more pro-

nounced when the walking is synchronized. This study suggests that

the positive effects of intergroup contact can be potentiated by per-

forming a physical task together. Whether the synchronization mat-

ters because it is a shared challenge, or because a feeling of physical

alignment causes a greater feeling of connection across lines of iden-

tity, this research finding is intriguing and raises interesting ques-

tions about whether bias-reduction strategies should incorporate

some element of physical activity.

Understanding the Neuroscience of Bias

The neuroscience research cited above

279

shows that unconscious

biases operate in different neural circuits than those that process

conscious decisions and evaluations. Accordingly, there may be a

promising avenue of bias-reduction research in the effort to deter-

mine how those quick-firing, biased circuits can be accessed directly

276.

See

Galen V. Bodenhausen & Christopher D. Petsko,

Complications in Pre-

dicting Intergroup Behavior from Implicit Biases: One Size Does Not Fit All, in

AMBRIDGE

ANDBOOK OF

MPLICIT

IAS AND

ACISM

(Jon A. Krosnick et al. eds.

2021).

277.

See

Janice A. Sabin et al.,

Implicit and Explicit Anti-Fat Bias Among a Large

Sample of Medical Doctors by BMI, Race/Ethnicity and Gender

, 7 PLOS ONE e48448,

Nov. 7, 2012, at 6.

278.

See generally

Gray Atherton et al.,

Imagine All the Synchrony: The Effects of

Actual and Imagined Synchronous Walking on Attitudes Towards Marginalized

Groups

, 14 PLOS ONE e0216585, May 14, 2019.

279.

See

note 21,

supra

, and accompanying text.

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or subliminally in ways that can provide those circuits with corrective

or unbiased associations.

280

In addition, neuroscientific studies have enabled researchers to

examine two different types of implicit bias: stereotypes (which are

activated in the cognitive circuits of our brains) and attitudes (which

are activated in the affective circuits of our brains).

281

Thus, inter-

ventions designed to counteract stereotypes may not be effective in

changing attitudes and vice versa. These findings may lead to better

strategies to combat both types of bias and the conclusion that indi-

viduals need a

group

of interventions, as opposed to any single type of

intervention.

One promising area of neuroscientific inquiry involves an exami-

nation of the differing brain circuits that are activated when people

process information about ingroup versus outgroup members. In a

review of such studies, the researchers note that the ability to locate

these circuits, using fMRI technology, might enable the targeting of

“brain areas involved in intergroup bias with non-invasive brain

stimulation techniques . . . to reduce or modulate intergroup bias.”

282

Finally, neuroscientific inquiries might answer questions about

why various bias-reduction strategies (of the kind described in Part

III of this article) work, or fail—for example, what changes in our

brains are caused by mindfulness meditation, and how do those

changes explain the reduction in unconscious bias?

283

Bias Malleability as a Function of Age

Can bias-reduction efforts be more successful with children than

adults? Until recently, little research has been done on age-related

differences in the malleability of implicit bias.

284

In a 2021 study,

280. In a 2009 study involving participants ranging in age from 40 to 91, Stewart

et al. showed that cognitive neural circuits can override automatic responses, but that

this inhibitory ability deteriorates with age. Brandon Stewart et al.,

Age, Race, and

Implicit Prejudice: Using Process Dissociation to Separate the Underling Components,

20 P

SYCH

. S

. 164, 166-67 (2009).

281.

See generally

David Amodio,

The Social Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

19 E

. R

. S

. P

SYCH

. 1 (2008).

282. Pascal Molenberghs & Winnifred R. Louis,

Insights From fMRI Studies into

Ingroup Bias,

9 F

RONTIERS

SYCH

., 2018, at 9. Thanks to Jeremy Lack for suggesting

this area of inquiry.

283. Thanks to Bill Glasner for posing this question.

284.

See, e.g.

, Antonya M. Gonzalez et al.,

Reducing Children’s Implicit Racial

Bias Through Exposure to Positive Out-Group Exemplars,

88 C

HILD

. 123, 124

(2017) (suggesting “possible developmental differences in the malleability of implicit

associations”).

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Antonya Gonzales et al. showed that a counter-stereotypical inter-

vention of the kind described in Part III(F) reduced implicit race bias

in children but had a greater impact on older children (aged 9 – 12)

than younger children (aged 5 – 8).

285

The researchers suggest that

the older children may be at an age where they are doing more

mental categorization of people based on race, gender, and other fac-

tors than the younger children.

286

A simple intervention for adult participants in the study that in-

volved hearing several stories about Black children who engaged in

prosocial actions (for example, helping someone who fell) and White

children who engaged in antisocial actions (for example, ridiculing

the person who fell) did

not

result in bias reduction.

287

But a second

study, in which the researchers used the same stories and also pro-

vided the adult participants with explicit encouragement to associate

the image of the Black individual with the word “good” and the White

individual with the word “bad,” resulted in implicit bias reduction im-

mediately after the intervention and also one hour later.

288

The re-

searchers concluded that “for adults, counter-stereotypical exemplar

exposure may be most effective when paired with diversity training

or other forms of explicit instruction.”

289

The researchers also sug-

gested that “children’s implicit racial bias may be more malleable

than that of adults due to the fact that they have relatively less expo-

sure to cultural stereotypes. As a result, exposure to counter-stere-

otypical exemplars in mainstream media, such as TV, movies, or

books, may be particularly effective for children.”

290

This research suggests many promising areas of inquiry, such as

whether different types of bias-reduction strategies—or combinations

of strategies—work better with people at different developmental

stages, and also whether the duration of bias-reduction effects varies

with age. Researchers can also shed light on whether age-related

patterns in the development of bias and susceptibility to bias-reduc-

tion strategies apply to all types of bias, or not. (For example, as peo-

ple age, are they just as prone to bias based on age and disability, or

less so.) And perhaps research about developmental differences in

285.

See

Antonya M. Gonzalez et al.,

Developmental Differences in the Malleability

of Implicit Racial Bias Following Exposure to Counterstereotypical Exemplars

, 57 D

E-

VELOPMENTAL

SYCH

. 102, 102 (2021).

286.

Id.

at 103.

287.

Id.

at 106–07.

288.

Id.

at 110.

289.

Id.

at 111.

290.

Id.

(citation omitted).

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the malleability of bias will help us learn more about how biases are

formed in the first place.

“Sedative” Effects

Several researchers have posed the following question: could

prejudice reduction serve majority-group interests by undermining

the motivation of minority groups to challenge the power asymme-

try?

291

One put it this way: “Although positive intergroup contact

decreases the prejudice that disadvantaged group members have to-

ward powerful majorities, it also decreases their perceptions that

they are targets of discrimination, their experience of relative depri-

vation and social injustice, and their support for redress policies and

their orientation to collective action.”

292

Another researcher called

this a “sedative effect.”

293

Further research and analysis is needed to

explore how the benefits of bias reduction can be pursued while sup-

porting collective action as an equally (or more) important priority.

Societal Forces

The IAT’s public platform has provided social psychologists with

test results from millions of individuals. In a recent analysis of ap-

proximately 7.1 million tests taken during the period from January 1,

2007, through December 31, 2020, Dr. Tessa Charlesworth and Prof.

Mahzarin Banaji found a reduction in

explicit

bias in six areas: race,

skin-color, sexual orientation, age, disability, and body weight.

294

However, with regard to

implicit

bias, the data show reductions in

only the first three of these areas, with little reduction of unconscious

bias based on age, disability, and body weight.

295

291.

See, e.g.,

MacInnis & Page-Gould,

supra

note 104; Durrheim & Dixon,

infra

note 292; Nikhil K. Sengupta & Chris G. Sibley,

Perpetuating One’s Own Disadvan-

tage: Intergroup Contact Enables the Ideological Legitimation of Inequality

, 39 P

ER-

SONALITY

& S

. P

SYCH

. B

ULL

. 1391, 1393 (2013) (citing John Dixon et al.,

‘What’s So

Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?’ Further Reflections on the Limits of

Prejudice Reduction as a Model of Social Change

, 1 J.

. & P

. P

SYCH

. 239

(2013)); McKeown & Dixon,

supra

note 102.

292. Kevin Durrheim & John Dixon,

Intergroup Contact and the Struggle for So-

cial Justice, in

XFORD

ANDBOOK OF

OCIAL

SYCHOLOGY AND

OCIAL

USTICE

(Phillip L. Hammack Jr. ed. 2016) (citations omitted).

293. Joanna Burch-Brown & William Baker,

Religion and Reducing Prejudice,

ROUP

ROCESSES

& I

NTERGOUP

ELS

. 1, 16 (2016) (citing several studies).

294.

See

Charlesworth & Banaji,

supra

note 27, at 1347.

295.

. at 1352. One of the noteworthy conclusions findings relates to the ques-

tion of whether IAT response data are skewed by self-selection—i.e., are the biases of

people who choose to take the IAT different from those of people who do not. Charles-

worth and Banaji note that approximately 76% of the people who take the IAT are

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Charlesworth and Banaji also found that there were upticks in

race, disability, and weight bias from 2015 through 2017—changes

that correlate with Donald Trump’s first U.S. presidential campaign

(and some of the themes of his campaign), but those increases were

relatively short-lived.

296

The authors also note other research show-

ing reductions in implicit bias that correlate with social movements

and the enactment of federal legislation.

297

Based on this research, it is evident that interventions of the

kind described in Part III of this article are not the only ways to re-

duce unconscious bias. However, the tracking of society-wide bias re-

duction could enable researchers to explore a number of important

questions, such as:

•

Which types of implicit bias (besides the six listed above) are

more impervious or less impervious to social change than

others and why?

•

Which biases (besides the six listed above) have the greatest

divergence between explicit bias and implicit bias? What are

the causes of that divergence?

•

What society-wide interventions or societal changes are effec-

tive/ineffective in changing attitudes and stereotypes, and

how do those vary from one type of bias to the next? Are some

more effective with explicit bias and others more effective with

implicit bias?

•

What are the trends with regard to intersectional bias (for ex-

ample, bias for or against Black women, as compared with

White men, White women, and Black men)? Might there be

some intersectional characteristics that are particularly re-

sponsive, or impervious, to societal impact?

In addition to these questions, researchers could investigate

whether insight into the types of societal forces that correlate with

widespread bias reduction could point the way to more effective inter-

ventions for individuals and organizations, and vice versa. That is,

whether the research summarized in Part III of this article might be

deployed to shape society-wide interventions aimed at reducing bias.

assigned to do so in connection with school or work, and that their results on the IAT

do not differ materially from the results of those who take the IAT voluntarily.

296.

Id.

at 1369. Interestingly, these effects were found only in implicit, not ex-

plicit, attitudes.

See id.

297.

Id.

(citing Eugene K. Ofosu et al.,

Same-Sex Marriage Legalization Associated

with Reduced Implicit and Explicit Antigay Bias

, 116 P

ROC

. N

’

CAD

. S

. 8846

(2019); Jeremy Sawyer & Anup Gampa,

Implicit and Explicit Racial Attitudes

Changed During Black Lives Matter

, 44 PUBMED 1039 (2018)).

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In addition, society-wide bias data can be useful in explaining not

only the origins of individuals’ biases but also the tendency for biases

to return even after an individual’s personal involvement in a bias-

reducing activity.

In a hopeful perspective on the research to date, Charlesworth

and Banaji suggest that interventions at the societal level might have

greater impact than individuals’ efforts: “[T]he current data—which

reveal widespread, parallel change across most demographic

groups—point to the interpretation that the most successful efforts

for attitude change are likely to be macro-level, societal events that

cut across demographic groups in similar ways.”

298

VI. C

ONCLUSION

Since the invention of the IAT in the mid-1990s, social psycholo-

gists have created an enormous body of research regarding the mea-

surement of unconscious bias and the effectiveness of strategies for

reducing such bias. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, un-

conscious bias has proven highly resistant to change. This should be

a concern for all and especially for those, such as mediators and law-

yers, who have a professional responsibility to be unbiased.

Experiments in the laboratory and in the field provide a substan-

tial basis for optimism that the interventions described in this arti-

cle—awareness, motivation, individuation, perspective-taking,

contact, stereotype replacement, and mindfulness—can be effective

in reducing unconscious bias. Among the challenges is developing

practices—for both individuals and organizations—that combine

these strategies in ways that could prove to be synergistic and com-

mitting to sustain such practices over time. The well-worn path of

one-and-done unconscious bias training has been shown to be woe-

fully insufficient.

The research reviewed in this article suggests that implementa-

tion of bias-reduction strategies on an institutional level can be en-

hanced by an articulated and sustained commitment to equity and

inclusion, the creation of diverse teams, the use of discussion groups

and affinity groups, and periodic trainings.

On the individual level, each of us can be more intentional about

shaping our indirect and direct contact and involvement with people

whose lives and identities are different from our own—through our

298.

Id.

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social experiences and our experience of the world through art, litera-

ture, and other media. In addition, we can be tenacious in self-exami-

nation, conscious of the stereotypes we hold, and intentional about

our motivation to make the world a better, less-biased place.

CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people helped us with our research and writing. Students

in the Diversity and Dispute Resolution course at Harvard Law

School (co-taught by David Hoffman and Audrey Lee, with guest

speaking assistance from Helen Winter) contributed by researching

and critiquing techniques for bias reduction. One of those students,

Rosie Kaur, worked with us in connection with a semester-long inde-

pendent study project on this subject at Harvard Law School. Col-

leagues and co-trainers Percy Ballard, Daniel Bowling, Marvin

Johnson, Homer La Rue, John Laing, Audrey Lee, Kate Lingren,

Madison Thompson, Chuck Walker, and Patricia Elam Walker also

contributed by providing feedback on ideas that formed the basis of

this article. Jenna Goodman at Boston Law Collaborative and Caryn

Shelton-May at Harvard Law School provided invaluable research

assistance. In addition, the following people provided useful sugges-

tions: Tessa Charlesworth, Bill Glasner, Ed Gold, Jeremy Lack, Nina

Meierding, Richard Schwartz, John Sturrock, and Leslie Warner.

Last, but far from least, we thank the following editors at the

Harvard Negotiation Law Review for their hard work on this article:

Austin Riddick, Valerie Gutmann, Nick Juan, Nick Noonan, Adrian

Brown, Dallas Estes, Komal Toor, Tiana Woods, Chanty Gbaye, Di-

ana Mejia Whisler, Chinaza Asiegbu, Kayla Lee, Janet Park, Jon

Fernandez, Bianca Corgan, Sarah Lorgan-Khanyile, Abdul Wahab

Niaz, and Ava Kazerouni.

We wish to absolve all of these individuals from any responsibil-

ity for errors in which we may have persisted despite their excellent

advice.

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