From Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit, Dynamics of Memory Formation Group
will present a paper titled
Reducing implicit cognitive biases through the performing arts
Abstract
Stereotypes are the belief that most members of a group have some characteristic. Some examples of stereotypes are the belief that women are nurturing, the belief that police officers like donuts or the belief that journal editors hate each of us. Although people may endorse egalitarianism and tolerance, cognitive biases can remain operative and drive harmful actions in an unconscious manner. Here, I will present data from a recent experiment that aimed to assess whether an intense 10-hours training program during ~12 consecutive days based on the performing arts developed by the Fundació Èpica – La Fura dels Baus and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute could reduce implicit cognitive bias associated to one of such stereotypes: physical illness. Implicit bias was measured to 16 healthy adults through an online version of the Implicit Associative Test (IAT) implemented before and after the training program. A similar test re-test IAT measure was acquired to another group of healthy participants matched to the experimental group who as a control sample. Our findings revealed that implicit bias was reduced only to those participants who were enrolled in the training program. Several outstanding questions related to these findings need to be addressed in the future. For example, which specific features of the training program are more relevant to reduce implicit cognitive bias? Do the observed changes in cognitive bias persist over time? Can we develop specific training programs with the aim to reduce other important implicit social biases such as racism and masculism?
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