The End of Bias: What the New Science of Overcoming Bias Teaches Us about Transforming Our Lives, Our Companies, Our World

FINALIST FOR THE NYPL HELEN BERNSTEIN AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM, THE LUKAS BOOK PRIZE, AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE

2022 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD SILVER MEDAL * AMERICAN SOCIETY OF JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS HONORABLE MENTION IN GENERAL NONFICTION

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, AARP, GREATER GOOD, AND INC.

The End of Bias is a transformative, groundbreaking exploration into how we can eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination, the great challenge of our age.

Unconscious bias: persistent, unintentional prejudiced behavior that clashes with our consciously held beliefs. We know that it exists, to corrosive and even lethal effect. We see it in medicine, the workplace, education, policing, and beyond. But when it comes to uprooting our prejudices, we still have far to go.

With nuance, compassion, and ten years’ immersion in the topic, Jessica Nordell weaves gripping stories with scientific research to reveal how minds, hearts, and behaviors change. She scrutinizes diversity training, deployed across the land as a corrective but with inconsistent results. She explores what works and why: the diagnostic checklist used by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital that eliminated disparate treatment of men and women; the preschool in Sweden where teachers found ingenious ways to uproot gender stereotyping; the police unit in Oregon where the practice of mindfulness and specialized training has coincided with a startling drop in the use of force.

Captivating, direct, and transformative, The End of Bias: A Beginning brings good news. Biased behavior can change; the approaches outlined here show how we can begin to remake ourselves and our world.

Includes illustrated charts

Jessica Nordell is a science and culture journalist whose essays on implicit bias have appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, the New Republic, and many other publications. A former NPR producer and creative director for Cheerios and Nike, she is the only writer whose beat is the cognitive phenomena of bias and discrimination and is much in demand as a speaker on the subject. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The End of Bias is her first book.