Prejudices |
Discrimination |
Bias (Psychology) |
Prejudgments |
Prejudice |
Prejudices and antipathies |
Bias |
Available:
Library | Shelf Number | Shelf Location | Status |
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Searching... Bridgewater Public Library | 303.385 NORDELL 2021 | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Elizabeth Taber Library | 303.385 NOR | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library | 303.385 NORDELL | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Guilford H. Hathaway, Assonet | 303.38 NOR | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Pembroke Public Library | 303.385 NOR | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Somerset Public Library | 303.3 NOR 2022 | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
FINALIST FOR THE NYPL HELEN BERNSTEIN AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM, THE LUKAS BOOK PRIZE, AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE
2022 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD SILVER MEDAL * AMERICAN SOCIETY OF JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS HONORABLE MENTION IN GENERAL NONFICTION
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM , AARP , GREATER GOOD , AND INC.
The End of Bias is a transformative, groundbreaking exploration into how we can eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination, the great challenge of our age.
Unconscious bias: persistent, unintentional prejudiced behavior that clashes with our consciously held beliefs. We know that it exists, to corrosive and even lethal effect. We see it in medicine, the workplace, education, policing, and beyond. But when it comes to uprooting our prejudices, we still have far to go.
With nuance, compassion, and ten years' immersion in the topic, Jessica Nordell weaves gripping stories with scientific research to reveal how minds, hearts, and behaviors change. She scrutinizes diversity training, deployed across the land as a corrective but with inconsistent results. She explores what works and why: the diagnostic checklist used by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital that eliminated disparate treatment of men and women; the preschool in Sweden where teachers found ingenious ways to uproot gender stereotyping; the police unit in Oregon where the practice of mindfulness and specialized training has coincided with a startling drop in the use of force.
Captivating, direct, and transformative, The End of Bias: A Beginning brings good news. Biased behavior can change; the approaches outlined here show how we can begin to remake ourselves and our world.
Includes illustrated charts
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Nordell debuts with a virtuoso survey of scientific research on the causes of prejudice and programs that have "successfully reduced everyday bias and discrimination." She delves into psychological concepts such as the "prejudice paradox" (people sincerely deny holding racist beliefs, yet still act in "racially discriminatory ways") and "priming" (planting a thought in someone's mind that changes their perception of the world); details the case of transgender neurobiologist Ben Barres, who became an activist for gender equality in science after he transitioned from a woman to a man in 1997; documents an LAPD community outreach program that reduced arrest rates and cut violent crime by teaching officers about the culture of public housing developments in Watts and east L.A. and shifting their focus from "making arrests to building relationships"; and explains how a French law firm improved performance by removing the barriers to advancement women with children had faced. Throughout, Nordell holds her own biases up to scrutiny, lucidly describes the methodology and findings of the copious psychological and sociological studies she cites, and draws vivid character sketches of her profile subjects. The result is a refreshingly optimistic and immersive look at how society can solve one of its thorniest problems. (Sept.)
Guardian Review
We often think of bias as a problem that other people have. It's harder to find someone willing to admit to it in themselves. That was what struck me reading American journalist Jessica Nordell's thoughtful book, The End of Bias, which I picked up at the same time as being absorbed in the new reality TV series My Unorthodox Life. The show follows Julia Haart, a New Yorker who in her 40s left an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to transform herself into a global fashion magnate. Her new life is remarkable, but her reflections on her old one are just as fascinating. Haart has spent decades asking herself why her world is the way it is, and the role she plays in making it that way. Today, she has no qualms about striding into her former Orthodox neighbourhood in shorts and a low-cut top, whatever people may think. It's not as easy for others to make that leap, though. In one scene, Haart's adult daughter, who has previously only worn skirts, in keeping with Haredi custom, reveals that her husband is nervous about her decision to try jeans for the first time. Haart's response is that it isn't a man's business to decide what any woman wears. But, as her daughter patiently explains, if she is going to move away from some of the values with which she was raised, she would rather do it with the support of the man she loves - even if that means it takes a little longer. Nordell's book helps to put this unusual mother-daughter moment into context. As the author explains, overcoming internalised bias isn't a matter of flipping a mental switch; it is a lifelong process of constantly questioning our deeply held beliefs. It can be painful, even when undertaken willingly. Many of us are familiar with the fact of gender and ethnic pay gaps, with structural and systemic discrimination, with glass ceilings and sticky floors, and how groups of people are disadvantaged by the quiet, subtle biases we may be unaware we have. To be raised in a society is to absorb its particular prejudices. None of us is immune. There have been countless books exploring the multifarious ways in which prejudice manifests itself. Diversity training has become big business. But overcoming bias is still fiendishly tough. "Unconscious" or "implicit" bias courses may be useful, but they don't explain where biases come from, nor do they necessarily strip them away. Indeed, in some ways, they make problems seem impossibly large. If everyone is biased, is there really any hope of fixing things? Drawing on the work of leading psychologists, including Stanford's Jennifer Eberhardt, author of the excellent 2019 book Biased, Nordell asks what a better approach might look like. If bias training isn't the answer, what is? There are simple measures that, while not exactly revelatory, do work. One tech company removed personal identifiers from job applications. When someone's gender or race are unknown, it's harder to discriminate against them. Ultimately, though, the hope is that it might be possible to change how people think and feel, so hacks like that are not needed. Bias is a habit, Nordell explains, and it's possible to train yourself out of it by probing your beliefs and actions more deeply. The author, for instance, notes that she felt "self-satisfied" as a student because she was one of the few women in her advanced maths and science classes. Only later did she realise that beneath this self-satisfaction lay the fact that "I [harboured] unexamined harmful beliefs about women's worthiness, and my own." This kind of mental transformation is easier to do when you're not stressed, she adds. Mindfulness helps. Starting young is also useful. Nordell describes a Swedish preschool that changed the way it taught after realising teachers treated girls and boys differently, which in turn affected how children behaved towards each other. They "let the boys cry if they wanted to cry and comforted them with the same tenderness they displayed towards the girls," she writes. Teachers flipped the gender of characters in stories, and began using the gender-neutral Swedish pronoun, hen. As a result, children began to stereotype others less. "Who might we become without our illusions and denials?" asks Nordell. Her answer takes the form of a rousing statement: "We might all become free." But what is missing here, as in so many books on bias, is the uncomfortable acknowledgment that many of those with bias don't experience it unconsciously at all. The Swedish school, for instance, received hate mail as a result of its actions. Overt prejudice powers populist and nationalist movements around the world. Religious and sexual minorities, and immigrants, are particular targets. Well-coordinated disinformation campaigns on social media have mobilised people's biases for political ends. The current salient fact about bias is not that we experience it against our will, but that so many appear to choose it. The reasons for this are complex. It's not always hatred that drives people to maintain these beliefs. Perhaps as often, it's that questioning our biases means questioning other aspects of our identities and cultures in a way that makes us insecure. Haart's daughter waited so long before wearing jeans in public not because she accepted the logic that it was shameful, but because the community she valued in other ways had certain expectations of how she should dress. This mattered to her. She wasn't ready to reject it all. If we're honest, how many of us can look at our own lives and not feel similar conflicts? Some feminists accept that changing a woman's surname after marriage is a concession to patriarchy, yet choose to do it anyway. Some Britons are reluctant to acknowledge the brutality of empire, not because they support colonialism, but because of what this might do to their sense of pride. We are all products of our cultures. We don't float free. The beliefs, values and traditions we are raised with are what moor us in the world. And they are all woven through with the biases of the past. Nordell has had to confront her own demons, including the fact that there were probably slave owners among her ancestors on her mother's side. That moral injury and the failure to confront it, she writes, is something that has affected her family over generations. "Old, inherited reflexes and mythologies surfaced repeatedly," she says. Challenging these feelings, she realises, will take honesty, self-scrutiny, education and, above all, time.
Kirkus Review
Is it possible to end biases, personal and institutional? Science journalist Nordell believes so, but it will require plenty of work. Nordell, a longtime student of prejudice and its origins, observes that there is a gulf "between the values of fairness and the reality of real-world discrimination," a gulf defined by the term implicit or unconscious bias. It is costly: Undervaluing women, ethnic minorities, or other marginalized groups deprives society of potentially valuable contributions on the parts of those who are discriminated against. While recognizing that many barriers are deliberate, Nordell argues that most people don't set out to make the sharp distinctions that engender them; the biases truly are unintended and, while learned, largely unexamined. The author's case studies include a transgender research scientist who, having transitioned to a male, found that his abilities were far more valued than when he was female; an Asian American man who lacked math skills but was promoted into jobs that assumed he was a stereotypical numbers whiz; and an imaginary Black teenager who, presented to White audiences as having "behaved in an antisocial way," was assumed to be a future felon and therefore more deserving of punishment than a White peer accused of the same thing. Nordell's examples are revealing but lead to the same general set of conclusions, so there's a certain sameness to the narrative that becomes more pronounced as it progresses. More useful are some of the recommended remedies, including "mindfulness meditation"--which, when adopted by one Oregon police department, led to a rapid decline in the use of force and citizen complaints--and counseling approaches that minimize shame while building awareness of bias and the motivation to imagine others' perspectives. "Colorblind" approaches, she writes, can backfire. These efforts pay off, she writes. Trust builds, relationships deepen; in a business context, "racially diverse teams where all employees were able to feel psychologically safe enough to learn from one another outperformed homogenous teams." A practical primer for those seeking to reduce the hegemony of bias in everyday life. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In her first book, journalist, poet, and radio producer Nordell explores the opportunities to address and dismantle societal biases, particularly those based on gender and race. Drawing from historical archives, interviews, psychological studies, and literature, Nordell clearly illuminates the psychology behind biases and the stories and lives of those negatively affected by such biases. She shares compelling examples of systemic changes made to eradicate bias from individual experiences and organizations, such as a preschool in Sweden where gender is irrelevant. Nordell also explains the impact of scientific racism in our community and interactions. The book can serve as a guide to reflect and consult on this critical issue both in the workplace and in communities at large. Readers interested in cognitive psychology, social behaviors, and workplace interactions will find Nordell's book both fascinating and helpful in understanding biases--unconscious, intentional, or unexamined--and learning how to overcome and dismantle all forms of them.
Library Journal Review
Science and culture journalist Nordell delves into cognitive science, social psychology, and developmental research to explain how we can change implicit bias, that is, unintentional prejudiced behavior that contradicts our consciously held beliefs. With a 100,000-copy first printing.