Kathleen Osta

Our Hidden Brain: Keys to Interrupting the Impact of Implicit Bias

Implicit bias has come to be recognized as a powerful force that not only shapes individual actions but institutional policies and practices as well. We now know implicit bias plays a role in individual interactions, suspensions from school, jury verdicts, sentencing to prison, job interviews, hiring, police shootings, and policies influencing housing, health care and more. This session will look at three primary mechanisms that produce bias: priming, associations, and assumptions and create understanding of actions people can take to counteract negative race associations that lead to negative consequences for people of color. This highly interactive session will use activities, videos, media images, and provocative discussions to increase understanding of how implicit bias manifests, how it perpetuates, and what people can do to interrupt it with a vision for changing both individuals and systems.