SCI-ART LAB

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Q: Can Science help in removing biases when a conditioned mind refuses to accept realities?

Krishna: I think it can! Let me explain.

I recently read a research report. I am adding it below ( matter in purple)

Commonly used police diversity training unlikely to change officers' behavior, study finds

Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died after a confrontation with police during a traffic stop earlier this month in Memphis, has become the latest face in a racial justice and police reform movement fueled by a string of similar cases in which Black men have died from injuries sustained while being taken into custody.

While these cases have spurred calls for greater law enforcement investment in diversity training, new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that the day-long implicit bias-oriented training programs now common in most U.S. police departments are unlikely to reduce racial inequity in policing.

"Our findings suggest that diversity training as it is currently practiced is unlikely to change police behavior," said study lead author Calvin Lai, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

"Officers who took the training were more knowledgeable about bias and more motivated to address bias at work," Lai said." However, these effects were fleeting and appear to have little influence on actual policing behaviors just one month after the training session."

Published Feb. 3 in the journal Psychological Science, the study evaluates the experiences of 3,764 police officers from departments across the nation who participated in one-day bias training sessions provided by the non-profit Anti-Defamation League.

The interactive workshops, which emphasize discussion and active learning over lecturing, were designed to help officers understand how their worldview is shaped by their identity and culture and to appreciate how these biases may affect their behavior.

Lai's evaluation of the program, which covered 251 training sessions held between July 2019 and January 2022, is based on police officers' self-reported responses to surveys conducted before training, immediately after training and one month later.

When officers were asked to describe their thoughts about the training, many reported that it was surprising and insightful. For instance, one officer wrote "it has opened my eyes to the bias we all have as human beings" and another said, "I really liked the course because it opened my eyes to implicit biases I never knew I had."

Officers participating in the study had an average of 15 years of service and most had been with their departments for more than five years. Most were below the rank of sergeant, 77% were male and 79% held a bachelor's degree or higher. Among those who reported their race, 47% were white, 20% were Black, 27% were Hispanic/Latino and 2% were Asian.

The final section of the training program focused on building skills to manage bias in policing. These strategies included mindfulness, such as intentionally bringing bias awareness to the present moment, and other interventions designed to help officers avoid perceptions based on negative stereotypes and see people as unique individuals with their own points of view.

While the training produced an immediate and long-lasting understanding of bias, it delivered only a temporary bump in concerns about bias and in the motivation to use strategies to limit bias in law enforcement interactions.

"Educating about implicit bias was effective for durably raising awareness about the existence of subtle or implicit biases, but little else," Lai said. "Our study indicates that the current generation of diversity training programs are effective at changing minds but less consistent at changing behavior."

Lai, who is currently working with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to develop a new managing bias training course for law enforcement agencies, says it's important to manage expectations about what can be accomplished in a single, standalone training session.

His study documents shortcomings in the Anti-Defamation League's Managing Bias program, which he considers to be one of the nation's best available diversity training programs. The program is research-based, comes with an 80-page instruction manual and is delivered by two-person teams of highly trained facilitators.

"The day-long training is more intensive than other diversity trainings, which are often only one to three hours," Lai said. "And yet, we found little evidence for long-term efficacy."

Lai's research suggests that police departments can boost the effectiveness of diversity training by showing a genuine, long-term commitment to program goals and ensuring that classroom bias training lessons are embedded with other organizational initiatives, reinforced by police managers and evaluated as a part of job performance.

"Changing minds is hard, creating social change is difficult, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing," Lai said. "We have to eliminate this all-or-none thinking about the effectiveness of implicit bias training and focus on specific changes that police departments can implement to make a real difference in outcomes."

Source:  The impact of implicit-bias-oriented diversity training on police officers' beliefs, motivations, and actions, Psychological Science (2023). DOI: 10.1177/0956797622115061

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Biases arise because you will be 'brain washed through out your life'. "People with a certain skin colour are not good", You would have been  told, "Because they are violent, steal, kill, argue and do bad things".  Now Show people these people doing 'good' things.

Then show people the opposite skin-coloured people doing the same bad things. 

You will naturally believe in 'your group' as you identify yourself with the group and think it would be safe to be with them always. You think 'other groups' are not as trustworthy. This is a survival instinct.

Make people 'always' move with other groups too and remove these irrational thoughts. 

You will be surprised  to erase biases if you do these things over and over again. You shouldn't stop with just one session because a life long conditioning of the brain will not go away in just a few hours. 

Now make the  people read how the nervous system works with full illustrations and a video showing the full details. The demonstrations should stick to the mind.

Then show them how pain signals are carried through the   nerves and how a person actually feels it. The person writhing with his/her body twisting and turning violently backwards and forwards, usually because s/he is in great pain or discomfort. If the person cries, it will stick like a gum to the mind.

Now when a person really realizes how nervous system works after reading it, actually sees how a person feels this pain and with great discomfort crying out, any person with 'erased biases' feels that it is bad to hurt anybody either physically or mentally. Because they can now think with a neutral mind and feel empathy equally towards everybody. 

After this 'scientific treatment', I am sure majority of people  - including the police- can act differently and in a civilized manner.

This is what happened to my mind when I erased all biases from it and I can never hurt anybody anymore. 

(But if people are shown cruelty all the time or subjected to cruelty during their growing phases of life, they become insensitive to pain and suffering and think it is okay to cause pain to others. That is where media and entertainment fields should maintain caution. These fields should not make people insensitive. They shouldn't expose people to too much violence. Even if they are exposed to it, they should be sensitized again first.

People who themselves were subjected to severe cruelty sometime in their lives have brain circuits that have become desensitized to cruelty. These people too should be treated for their condition first).

I am sure this can work with the majority of the  people in the world ( but I must emphasize here that some people's brain chemistry  will be different and they don't feel empathy at all because of this. You must treat these people first to change the chemistry of their brains before giving this 'scientific treatment' I mentioned above).

Erasing biases is not easy. But a good training in Critical Thinking and  Scientific Thinking will definitely help you. A critical thinking person can overcome his biases to a large extent. Whenever these biases try to interfere in your thinking and behaviour, your well trained mind will ring an alarm bell and you will definitely try to correct yourself.  

This is what happens to me most of the time. 

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