The Brain’s Wicked Reward System and Overcoming Stereotypes for Good
Amber and Will are very excited about Wicked: For Good releasing later this month
Diverse Joy Podcast - Season 3, Episode 2
Amber takes a selfie with Will on set
In excitement for the release of the movie Wicked: For Good later this month, Amber and Will are dressed as Elfie and Guy-linda from Wicked!
Will’s joy this month is Heels & Wheels, a disability-inclusive dance group in Madison, Wisconsin. Amber’s joy is the power of Wicked The Musical and especially the movie starring Cynthia Erivo, which brings a new depth of feeling to the character of Elphaba as portrayed by a Black woman, and especially her experience of the Pet-to-Threat phenomenon. Amber also adored going to a sing-along screening of Wicked: Part 1 with her family!
This episode’s discussion topic involves the science behind the brain’s reward system and how it is involved in stereotyping and bias. Stereotypes lead to probabilistically uncertain predictions, and when those predictions are upheld, it engages your brain’s reward system. This is sometimes called “intermittent reinforcement”, which is the most difficult learning pattern to overcome. We can all work on trying to recognize that we might have positive emotional reactions when stereotypes are upheld, and frustrated emotional reactions when stereotypes or predictions are disrupted–those are fundamental building blocks for understanding and undermining bias habits. Finding pleasure (e.g., joy!) in things that oppose stereotypes and bias can help work against these neural processes and improve diversity and inclusion.
During story time, Will shares a story about someone who used a rude statement to try to prove stereotypes are true. Amber’s more positive story was about her summer camp’s commitment to diversity and their statement regarding gender inclusion that embraces transgender and nonbinary identities.
Continuing from the Wicked discussion, this episode’s question revisits the Pet-to-Threat phenomenon we talked about in Season 2, Episode 13, and discuss what other factors sometimes drive diverse people out of career paths, especially academic careers.
A closeup of Amber as Elphaba while recording this episode
For the bias habit-breaking skill, this time we’re talking Impression Justification, which involves having a “good gut feeling” when someone matches stereotypes or “bad gut feeling” when someone mismatches stereotypes. Those gut feelings then become lenses that color your judgments.
(This skill corresponds to Chapter 3 of Overcoming Bias Habits: An Evidenced-Based Guide to Creating a Joyfully Inclusive World.)
A closeup of Will as “Guy-linda” while recording this episode
For this episode’s joyful recommendation, it can be none other than… ALL THINGS OZ! If you haven’t already seen Wicked: Part One starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda, you gotta check it out. Wicked: For Good releases later this month and, obviously, we haven’t seen it yet, but the trailers make it look fantastic. Of course, the original The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. And we can’t forget to mention The Wiz (1978), the original reimagining of the source material. (For those who don’t know, the Wicked movies are based on the Broadway production, which was itself based on the Gregory Maguire novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), a reimagining that focused on the Wicked Witch and added a lot of politically intriguing elements around the Wizard.)
The episode can be found below, by following the podcast wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, RSSFeed, Amazon/Audible, or by subscribing to @BiasHabit on YouTube.
