Psychology of Bias

What is a bias?  A bias is a behavior that exhibits the inclination to have thoughts or attitudes about something or someone.  It can be harmful or helpful.  It does not have to be true and that is what makes it so important that we recognize bias. The literature from Psychology Today gives more thought that “Whether positive or negative, such cognitive shortcuts can result in prejudgments that lead to rash decisions or discriminatory practices.”  

So, should we pay attention to these behaviors? Will we be able to control or mitigate these behaviors if we are not conscious of them? If we are not conscious of the bias it is not likely we will manage it; it is more likely we will and are acting on that bias. When we are routinely acting on biased opinions and beliefs, we could be perpetrating  harmful behaviors.  When we have been in this mode of thinking and behaving for a lifetime, we think this is normal; this is how it is. Our negative opinions and beliefs may be prejudicial…again, causing us to think this is normal behavior.  The worst of this is we see our behavior as normal and we are the last to understand that we are prejudicial towards others.

JUS educates. JUS gives the participant an opportunity to resonate deep within self and explore historical context of America to raise understanding of how beliefs about things, events and people are shaped. The impact on America’s people imposed by American society  is not something we selectively do to ourselves; moreover, it is done to us. This is the first step of opening the doors to visualizing what America is and how it has formed us all. This is about truth-telling and putting the biases on the table, looking at them, reshaping them and moving along with them from a different angle.  That different angle is borne of cognition; the cognition of knowing where we are and what the next steps are can be helpful in uprooting these biases in which we have been molded.

JUS causes the biases to come up and then come out…onto the table where they are seen, owned and put in a place where they are safe.