How Hidden Mental Habits Can Create Unintended Consequences

The Crossroads spring lecture series continues on Sunday, April 18 at 2:00 pm at the Orcas Center with Dr. Anthony Greenwald’s presentation of “How Hidden Mental Habits Can Create Unintended Consequences.”

Do we know our own minds?  What sort of unconscious biases might we have?  How do we make judgments and decisions?

According to Anthony Greenwald, “As human beings we like to assume that our beliefs, judgments and decisions are the products of our conscious, rational thought processes.  Current psychological research paints a more complex and problematic picture.”

In his Crossroads presentation Greenwald describes some of our methods of “implicit social cognition”, provides an overview of current psychological research and establishes how hidden mental habits may guide us, resulting in unintended thoughts and actions (such as discriminatory behavior.)  The presentation is followed by audience Q&A and a public reception.

Dr. Greenwald is a social psychologist and, since 1986, Professor of Psychology at University of Washington.  He received an A.B. from Yale University, and both his A.M. and Ph.D. at Harvard University.

Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, Brian Nosek and others have done extensive research on cognition, and collaborated to create the Implicit Association Test.  This test measures the extent to which an individual will associate two individual concepts.  More than 4.5 million IAT tests have been completed on the IAT website.

The Crossroads Series presents thoughtful, provocative speakers who help the Orcas community think about timely issues, both local and global.  The series is co-sponsored by Friends of the Library, the Orcas Island Public Library, Orcas Center, the Daniel and Margaret Carper Foundation and the Crossroads Associates.

Tickets are $10 and may be purchased at Darvill’s Bookstore and the Library.  A limited number of complimentary tickets are made available in advance through the Library and Senior Center.