Live Lecture on Emotional Self-Regulation and the Learning and Unlearning of Bias
According to Martha Bronson, "controlling arousal and the expression of emotions is an important part of self-regulated functioning. Psychologists have defined emotional control in two major ways: (1) as the capacity to regulate arousal appropriately in order to reach goals and (2) as the ability to control the behavioral expression of emotions in socially adaptive ways." (2000, 58)
Holding negative bias against individuals for personal or social characteristics is not socially adaptive in today's world, but it still is passed down from one generation to the next. The consequences of the perpetuation of bias include: interference in social relations; the development of fears that have no basis; and, the continuation of unequal power, privileges for some, and social inequity in our lives. Bronson reminds us that emotions and cognition are intertwined. She refers us to Piaget's suggestion that "there is no such thing as a purely cognitive or purely affective state since both are involved in all activity of the mind and each influences the other." (2000, 59)
Recent research into both brain science and the processes of learning have revealed how bias is learned from the moment we are born. How could this be, if our intentions (our goals) are to NOT be biased? This lecture on how children learn bias explains how this happens and what we can do to break into this cycle and achieve emotional self-regulation in regard to human differences. There is also a file of strategies for un-doing bias that follows this one.
Click on the following words in green Live Lecture to get to the video in a new window.
Holding negative bias against individuals for personal or social characteristics is not socially adaptive in today's world, but it still is passed down from one generation to the next. The consequences of the perpetuation of bias include: interference in social relations; the development of fears that have no basis; and, the continuation of unequal power, privileges for some, and social inequity in our lives. Bronson reminds us that emotions and cognition are intertwined. She refers us to Piaget's suggestion that "there is no such thing as a purely cognitive or purely affective state since both are involved in all activity of the mind and each influences the other." (2000, 59)
Recent research into both brain science and the processes of learning have revealed how bias is learned from the moment we are born. How could this be, if our intentions (our goals) are to NOT be biased? This lecture on how children learn bias explains how this happens and what we can do to break into this cycle and achieve emotional self-regulation in regard to human differences. There is also a file of strategies for un-doing bias that follows this one.
Click on the following words in green Live Lecture to get to the video in a new window.