An Online Support Group and Blog to Reduce Bias and Conflict
/Daniel R. Stalder (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–WHITEWATER)
Please note: Instructors are welcome to use or adapt these teaching ideas for their own classes, provided the use is noncommercial and appropriate credit is given.
Objectives
To help students and the public to: (1) learn about biases such as racism, the fundamental attribution error, confirmation bias, and either-or thinking; (2) see how biases can occur in real-world contexts and contribute to conflicts and injustices; (3) step back and acknowledge the possibility of their own biases; (4) adopt mindsets and strategies that can reduce bias, slow anger, and promote compassion; and (5) see the role of research in addressing biases
Abstract
Biases can lead to anger and social conflict. I "enrolled" myself and my students in a mock support group to help us acknowledge our potential biases and become less quick to anger or judge others negatively. I called the group Persons at Risk of Bias (or "PARBs") Anonymous. I passed out brochures with pledges and slogans, each of which included information about a bias or a way to reduce bias or slow anger. The idea later expanded to an online support group and blog with articles. A core assignment required students to apply pledges to scenarios to reduce anger and conflict. Over several semesters, students reported that the assignment, brochure, and blog helped them learn the material in a fun and unique way, improved their understanding of self and others, slowed their anger toward others, and were very applicable to real-life conflicts. Students called the blog "impactful," "a great tool," and "approachable."
Description of Entry
At the start of each of my social psychology courses, I "enroll" myself and my students in a semester-long mock support group to help us become more open to our own biases, less judgmental, less quick to anger, and more compassionate. The project begins with a paper brochure with pledges and slogans that I distribute, discuss, and create assignments around. Each pledge and slogan reflect information about a bias or suggest ways to reduce bias, think more critically, or become less upset with other people. After a few years of using this technique, I expanded it into an online support group and blog that maintained the pledges and slogans and added other components, including more than two dozen articles approximately 1,000 words each. The articles discuss bias and ways to reduce bias in everyday life or high-profile events (including school shootings, debates on trigger warnings, and bouts of fake news). I assign several of these articles as course readings, base assignments on them, and cover them in exams. The blog and support group are designed around the premise that we are all at risk of bias, so I call the mock support group Persons at Risk of Bias (or "PARBs") Anonymous.
Development
This project began in 2011, when it occurred to me that critical thinkers might benefit from a support group. A support group could help them through the challenges of abandoning long-held preconceptions and acknowledging personal biases. Critical thinking, despite its benefits, can be psychologically difficult. Most of us adhere to a number of biases, not only to feel better about ourselves, but also to feel secure or certain in our simplified perceptions of others and the world. It can be helpful to know that we're not alone in our biases and our desire to improve. Like the proverbial first step in problem-focused support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, admitting there's a problem may be a crucial first step—in this case, being open to the possibility of our own biases. That openness became the first pledge in a group of pledges and slogans that underlay PARBs Anonymous.
In designing PARBs Anonymous, I drew from real-life support groups. I envisioned that a realistic-looking context might make the material engaging and might better allow students to reduce their own biases without being told by a teacher that they're biased. Because of reactance, naïve realism, and other psychological processes that make it hard for most of us to see our own biases and accept advice, I was trying to strike a delicate balance of educating without preaching or presuming (Newman and Bakina, 2009). Indeed, I cannot fairly accuse any particular student (whom I don't yet know) of holding a particular bias. But we are all at risk of bias. This tenet helps students be more open and allows me more leeway to plant ideas. And in the long run, if more of us can be open to the possibility of our own biases—even if we're not biased in every way—the end result will be a reduction in bias and conflict in society.
I modeled the PARBs Anonymous brochure from actual support-group materials and also added certain elements to make the concept fun and interesting. In addition to the pledges and slogans, I included made-up quotes about the program from news outlets and added the valid statement that there were over 6 billion unofficial members worldwide. I made clear to students that PARBs Anonymous was not a real support group but simply captured some of the core components of a real support group, such as not feeling alone, learning about other people's struggles, and receiving strategies to address a problem. I also told students that I was not clinically trained but that social psychology had identified social processes within support groups which could be helpful. In February 2014, I launched the online blog "PARBs Anonymous: Using Social Psychology to Reduce Bias and Conflict." A main goal of the blog was to encourage readers to consider the possibility that they may harbor biases, and to reduce bias and conflict in society.
Assignments and Assessment
After lecturing on the pledges and slogans with everyday examples, I gave a core assignment for students to practice applying the pledges. I also developed several exam questions to test knowledge and applications of the pledges and slogans. The core assignment described several conflict scenarios in which there was a negative interpersonal outcome such as breaking up with a significant other because of a fight over two different memories of a shared event, or getting angry at a classmate over an ambiguous email or text. Students then had to select the best pledge which, had it been considered in the scenario, might have prevented the negative outcome. Over several semesters, students performed consistently well on the assignment. The item on which they usually performed least well would be retested on the next exam, where there was consistent improvement. After launching the blog, I added assignments and exam questions on the posted articles. I also collected survey data from students on their perceptions of the PARBs Anonymous approach.
Learning Outcomes
Students learned about many biases, how to reduce them, how to think more critically in social contexts, and how to otherwise apply this knowledge to everyday life. Reducing such biases can slow anger, reduce conflict, and promote more compassionate and peaceful interactions (e.g., Lerner and Tiedens, 2006). In particular, reducing victim blaming (one form of the fundamental attribution error) can increase people's willingness to help those in need. Some of these outcomes are apparent in students' own words and survey data, as given below.
Evidence of Effectiveness and Impact
I have collected quantitative and qualitative data over several years (from assignments, exams, and surveys) that document the effectiveness and impact of this action teaching approach to debiasing. Overall, students perform very well on objective assignment and exam questions related to the PARBs materials, often averaging 85-90% correct.
The PARBs Anonymous blog has received over 27,900 views since February 2014 and was discussed by Jill Cody of KSQD when she interviewed me on January 19, 2020, for her radio show "Surviving Political Tribalism." Parts of the blog also appeared in my book The Power of Context: How to Manage our Bias and Improve Our Understanding of Others (2018, Prometheus Books). This book cites some of the PARBs articles and is one of two texts from which I teach my current social psychology courses. In 2018, I was also invited to write a blog for Psychology Today. The blog is titled "Bias Fundamentals: Tools to Keep Our Biases in Check," draws from PARBs articles, and has received over 140,000 views since March 2018.
Over several semesters spanning 11 sections of social psychology courses, I administered the core assignment (or close variations) that asks students to apply the PARBs pledges to social scenarios. Across about 350 students during this time period, my class averages for this assignment varied between 89% and 97% correct (overall M = 93.3%, SD = 2.4%).
In four classes (N = 113), I collected survey data that I presented at conferences in 2013 and 2014. These surveys asked respondents to evaluate several dimensions of the PARBs Anonymous brochure, including pledges and slogans. Most measures comprised multiple items (alphas varied between .67 and .94), and all means differed significantly from the 4.0 midpoint of the scale (1 = not at all, 7 = a great degree), ps < .001. Specifically, students tended to see the brochure as applicable to everyday life; as informative, interesting, and fun; as helpful in learning about biases and debiasing; as helpful in understanding themselves and others; and so forth. In only one case did students fall below the scale's midpoint: reducing certainty in one's memory, which averaged 3.12—significantly higher than the lowest point on the scale (1 = not at all), but not as high as other ratings. The following table contains all mean responses.
|
Survey Measure |
Mean Response |
|---|---|
|
Applicable to everyday life |
5.95 |
|
Informative, interesting, and fun |
5.86 |
|
Helpful to learn material |
5.45 |
|
Helpful in better understanding oneself |
4.65 |
|
Helpful in better understanding others |
5.19 |
|
Helpful in reserving one's judgment about others |
4.66 |
|
Helpful in reducing certainty in one's own memory |
3.12 |
On assignments, open-ended comments were usually optional (approximately 40% of students responded, the vast majority of which were positive). Here are a few representative student comments from assignments or surveys:
"I have probably committed the fundamental attribution error many times [and] have not even known it. Reading through this article helped me to start getting myself in the social thinking mindset about the people around me and myself even."
"I really liked the three M's article because it seems applicable to everyday life and all different kinds of situations, not just boyfriend/girlfriend. This could happen between family members or even within a friend group."
"I simply enjoy the idea of reading the blog for class. It is a different aspect that most teachers do not do. It is a more student friendly way of teaching than just reading out of a book or taking notes."
"One aspect I like of the blogs on the site is that you draw from pop culture (i.e., Insurgent) and break down what's good or bad and how biases play a part in them. Articles like this and ones that are geared towards teenaged things are the ones I feel can help reduce bias because it brings it into a context we are familiar with instead of just some textbook jargon."
"I find this article the most interesting because one of my traits that I need to personally work on is interpreting facial expressions and assuming they mean the worse. I tend to assume what a person is thinking and it leads to a lot of distrust and conflict in the lives of those around me."
Extensions and Variations
The PARBs approach appeared to be highly successful in all intended ways except leading students to temper certainty in their memories, so instructors may wish to add further content with respect to overconfidence in memory. Another extension might be to incorporate PARBs or similar support groups in courses or topical areas beyond social psychology, such as Introduction to Psychology, Judgment and Decision Making, Conflict Resolution, Interpersonal Relations, and courses related to prejudice.
References
Lerner, J. S., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2006). Portrait of the angry decision maker: How appraisal tendencies shape anger's influence on cognition. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 19, 115-137.
Newman, L. S., & Bakina, D. A. (2009). Do people resist social-psychological perspectives on wrongdoing? Reactions to dispositional, situational, and interactionist explanations. Social Influence, 4, 256-273.