PARMJIT SINGH, PhD

In this session, we shall be exploring questions, challenges and blind spots related to bias in the context of workplace and culture.  Particularly, we shall be pursuing the following:

• If unconscious bias is unconscious (often operating between 50-100 milliseconds), how do we go about changing it consciously? Do intellectual conversations, discussions or tests help or hinder the process of identifying and mitigating bias in real life?
• Does scoring high on an implicit bias test in a lab make one equally biased in real life? How do we reconcile the observation that someone’s real life behaviour could be different from their lab results? We also explore the translatability issue in social sciences, that people often don’t do in real life what they show in experiments.

• To what extent might the structure and culture of a workplace be more important in determining, perpetuating (and promoting) biased actions and behaviours than its individual participants?
• Do we have a more wholesome way of mitigating bias and approaching the idea of equity and diversity?