Change the Wallpaper: Social psychological interventions to reduce bias and increase inclusion

The observation that powerful situations shape human cognition, motivation, emotion, and behavior is a central theme in social psychology in the classic tradition of Kurt Lewin. This presentation will take you on a journey across my 25-year program of research in the Lewinian tradition investigating how powerful situations shape the plasticity of people's attitudes, beliefs, and their self-concept in response to seemingly small nudges in local environments. What features of situations are particularly potent in shifting social behavior? In what domains and on what outcomes? Through what mechanisms? How durable is the impact? These are questions we ask. Our focus is to answer these questions by designing situations that promote inclusion and reduce exclusion across two branches of research: How powerful situations affect self-perceptions and perceptions of outgroups. This presentation will give you a peek into what we have learned in the past 25 years.