17 a 17 Jun. 2021 - 21:00

Unpacking bias: perspectives from neuroscience and social psychology

Do we consciously choose how we act in all situations?
Can we act in racist or sexist ways without intending to?

Unpacking bias: perspectives from neuroscience and social psychology

We make countless decisions each hour, each minute. Most of these decisions are made without our active awareness and while they may be inconsequential to us, they can impact other people. For instance, when we choose a seat on the train next to people who look most similar to ourselves or how much eye contact we make (or don’t make). 

In this Ar event, we will start by revealing some surprises hidden within your own unconscious brain. Our host Jovin Jacobs - neuroscience researcher at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown - will illustrate in an interactive manner how all humans are biased in how we act, react and interact with each other, and how that impacts ourselves and the people around us. 

As our special guest for the night, we will have Ricardo Borges Rodrigues, a social developmental psychologist at ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon. He will demonstrate how a social scientist measures biases, and show us some results of studies performed in the Portuguese population. Ricardo will share his insights on how children learn, change, and express their biases as they grow up and discuss what we can learn from them.  

Megan Carey, the Principal Investigator at the Neural Circuits and Behaviour Lab at Champalimaud Research, will complement this by explaining how we can study implicit biases in the laboratory to reveal the underlying neural mechanisms by which our brains learn associations, implicitly and explicitly, and how those associations can be re-learned.

We will end the evening by looking beyond the unconscious, to how we can outsmart ourselves and consciously act to stop the perpetuation of discriminatory structures and actions towards our neighbours, colleagues and fellow humans. For this we invite questions from the audience to be discussed at a virtual round table with our speakers and additional expert panellists, bringing both professional and personal perspectives. 

Together, we will have explored how implicit and explicit biases are rooted in our brains and surroundings and discussed what we can do to move towards a more inclusive, less discriminatory environment for all. 

Join us June 17th (9pm WET) and register here. To visit the dedicated Ar event webpage click here.

Unpacking bias: perspectives from neuroscience and social psychology
Loading
Please wait...