Is there any way to improve race relations? Re-watching the 1993 film The Joy Luck Club might help a bit. In one study, white people who watched the movie while empathizing with its characters—all strong, complex Asian-American women—were less likely to be biased against a group labeled “them” in a computer game, as opposed to “us.”
Or, we could have white people play dodgeball on a teams full of sportsmanlike African Americans—that too, has shown to reduce bias.
These are just a few examples of the myriad ways psychologists are trying to hack the human brain to be less prejudiced.
Most people harbor biases against other races and genders, whether they admit to them or not. And as the events of recent weeks (and frankly, centuries) underscore, societal bias against African Americans is perhaps most pervasive and harmful of all.
African-Americans face discrimination in almost every facet of life. People with black-sounding names are less likely to be invited for interviews by prospective employers or even to stay in apartments by AirBnb hosts.
[For more of this story, written by Olga Khazan, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/sci...as-reduction/491195/]
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