A songwriter and singer from New York, Siobahn Hotaling released several albums in her career, including Heart on Fire and Unguarded. She currently serves as a project consultant at the Adaption Institute and a senior user experience designer at Global Payments. Additionally, during her academic years at Harvard University, Siobahn Hotaling developed the Implicit Bias Transformation Program, as she is interested in implicit bias research and techniques that can help individuals build tolerance and diverse perspectives..
Implicit bias reveals that people often have unconscious attitudes toward other people or institutions that they are not fully aware of, as they lie in the unconscious part of the brain. Implicit biases can manifest in a wide range of environments, from the criminal justice system to the workplace and even school. For example, people might have preconceived ideas and beliefs about a particular institution and like it or its actions while being against that institution and hating it at an unconscious level.
With implicit bias training, people can begin to identify their unintentional behavior and beliefs. With that awareness, they bring the unconscious into the conscious, therefore giving themselves an opportunity to reduce their discriminatory thoughts and practices toward some persons or institutions. Removing a bias is somewhat hard, as most people do not even know they exist. The first step is awareness; the second step is understanding oneself more deeply; the third step is beginning to - consciously - create different thoughts and actions around the group or individual. The reinforcement of these alternate thoughts and narratives is what can transform biases for good.
