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Calling all readers: Have you ever wondered what the phrase “hidden bias” means? Or how such biases might affect your everyday life? Join a new book circle for faculty and staff to read “Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People” by Mahzari R Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald. This is the second book circle of the year; another formed last fall.
In the book, Banaji and Greenwald explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status and nationality.
Using their experience with the Implicit Association Test, a method that gives us a glimpse of our unconscious biases at work, Banaji and Greenwald question the extent at which our perceptions of social groups shape our judgements about people’s character, abilities, and potential. Explaining the science clearly and plainly, Banaji and Greenwald guide us through the workings of the brain, how it uses common stereotypes, and how to “outsmart the machine” that relies on them. Powerful, challenging and revealing, “Blindspot” is an invitation to understand our own minds and, in process, be fairer to those around us. The book also has a special connection to UMass Amherst: when professor Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta of the department of psychological and brain sciences was a Ph.D. student at Yale, she collaborated with Banaji.
Readers will have eight weeks to read the book and then come together as a group to discuss. Sign up using the link below by Dec. 13. Refreshments and snacks supplied at the discussion. Meet new colleagues across campus and get involved. If you have any questions, contact Chris Burnett at 545-5270 or caburnett@research.umass.edu
The book circle is supported by a Campus Climate grant to the Office of Research and Engagement.