Welcome to Information for Transformation, The Neuroscience of Bias!

This course is a 4 session, work at your own pace, video course. The sessions are intentionally spaced to release 1 week after each other to allow for time for processing and reflection after each one. Once a video module is completed, there will be a short assessment you must complete to move to the next session. There will also be occasional pre-work such an article to read before starting the next session.

The session descriptions are below and are also before each new video segment.

Happy Learning and Changing the World!

Session 1: The “Bugs” in Our Brain: An Intro to Cognitive Biases

Our brain has a mostly unconscious and instinctual system that has allowed for human survival throughout evolution by protecting us from harm. This system, while important evolutionarily, is also full of errors or “bugs”, also known as cognitive biases. During this session we will learn about the brain’s inherent flaws, demonstrate some of them and discuss the implications in our lives broadly. 

Session 2: Our Emotional Brain and Its Role in Unconscious Biases

In this session we will examine the lizard brain and its role in bias and fear learning. While protective and efficient for life-threatening situations, in most modern life situations it activates more than is necessary, often unconsciously.  Although current mainstream cultural norms stress equality and fairness as paramount to our society, this is juxtaposed with pervasive negative media representation of people of color. This leads to the lizard brain's automatic “learning” of negative stereotypes of people of color further perpetuating implicit bias. In this session we will examine what is happening in the brain during a stereotypic fear response and examine our cultural assumptions in the light of actual systemic constraints. 

Session 3: Confront Learned Stereotypes with the PFC

During the last session we learned about the role of the lizard brain in unconscious fear-based learning largely propagated by the media. This "learning" (which happens even in the brains of the oppressed) skews decisions, interprets information inaccurately and changes our physiology. Thankfully, humans also have an area of the brain that can overcome this more ancient wiring giving us opportunity to reflect and confront our biases and make better decisions. In this session, we will examine the role of higher order thinking, slowing down decision making and creating more diverse communities to lay the foundation of a more equitable society.

Session 4: Evidence Based Practices for Dismantling Systemic Racism Changing biased thought patterns is challenging but entirely attainable due to our indefatigably plastic (Changeable brain). In this session we will discuss ways to optimize our incredible brain plasticity to overcome implicit biases' oppressive nature for the most marginalized in society. Understanding the environments and practices that allow us to connect and support others includes creating diverse relationships, building familiarity and connection and ensuring representation and counter stereotypes. This session will focus on building the skills to practice our anti-racism.