Key takeaways
This article first appeared in Training Journal on August 7, 2020, written by Dr. Michael Casale, Strivr’s Chief Science Officer. It’s been colloquialized for use on our blog. Read the full article here.
Approximately 61% of US employees have experienced or witnessed discrimination at work. While DE&I initiatives have surged in recent years, non-inclusive and inequitable behaviors continue to negatively impact businesses and employees.
It’s clear that companies are still figuring out how to provide effective diversity and inclusion training. Psychology and cognitive science research can help identify the reasons why these initiatives struggle.
Research has shown that attempting to have individuals ‘unlearn’ well-learned habits (like biased attitudes and beliefs) is a much more difficult and complicated process than many have assumed. A much more effective and realistic goal is to focus on helping employees identify and respond to non-inclusive behaviors with real-world practice in an immersive environment.
The science behind DE&I training
Some approaches have been based on a belief that non-inclusive behaviors can be unlearned simply through training and practice.
In reality, these behaviors are very difficult to change fundamentally because of the way the brain ‘protects’ the learning of complex behaviors, such as the non-inclusive behaviors that are learned over the lifetime of an individual (Crossley, Ashby, & Maddox, 2013).
Essentially, this means that for unlearning to occur one would need to provide a new way to associate the ‘reward patterns’ between what people observe and how they decide whether the behavior is non-inclusive or not.
This is problematic mostly because the way associations are made likely involves fundamental changes in the way an individual encodes these reward patterns, which is something that most if not all training programs are unable to account for.
Instead, learning to pair the same non-inclusive behavior with a more strongly rewarded associated action should be much more effective.
Although this doesn’t completely erase the original learning, it can be sufficient to provide a stronger, alternative response through training. One particularly important aspect to this training process are immersive environments that can provide the trainee with experiences found in the real world.
These simulated environments provide employees with actual scenarios that they will encounter in the workplace. This is important as it’s much more effective, if not critical to train, to use ‘real-world inputs’ as opposed to role play exercises or 2D videos where both are unlikely to be representative of a given learner’s workplace.
Prior related research has demonstrated that without these real-world examples, learning simply doesn’t transfer (Casale, Ashby, & Roeder, 2012). Work is currently being done to create these experiences, with researchers exploring the usage of new technologies such as VR and immersive learning.
Three steps to building a more inclusive workplace
By moving away from unlearning to categorizing behaviors in an immersive environment, designing a new training approach would emphasize building on the skills of awareness, detection, and decision to include practicing action and reaction.
01. Awareness & detection
First, employees and executives need to be able to properly identify non-inclusive workplace interactions by practicing with real-world input. However, this is particularly challenging given the variety of nuances and factors such as: tone of voice, non-verbal gestures, and microaggressions.
It is difficult to truly teach proper categorization/identification of non-inclusive behaviors without being able to actually experience scenarios with them (this is why traditional methods like seminars, presentations and videos can fall short).
It’s important to create a learning experience that immerses an individual in situations where micro-aggressions and non-inclusive behaviors surface so that they can then begin to recognize them in the real world.
02. Decision making
The next step places emphasis on understanding how to react in different scenarios and choosing the appropriate course of action.
This process is potentially more effective when done in an immersive environment that allows someone to experience micro-aggressions from a first-person perspective in addition to watching these scenarios unfold as a third party.
03. Practice action & reaction
Finally, practicing to actively engage in these situations with access to immediate feedback can build and reinforce the association between each skill. Passive training methods such as: watching videos, role play, and powerpoint presentations often follow a set script.
Allowing individuals the freedom to identify the situation, assess for options, and act on a decision can be a more effective learning experience when combined with helpful feedback. Being able to practise repeatedly in a safe, low-risk, and immersive environment allows the individual to develop new skills to better prepare and be more flexible in real-world situations.
Building an inclusive and diverse organization is not a simple task, but steady improvements in methodology are being made with new research and technology. For DE&I training to improve, traditional methods must be supplemented with types of training that give employees the opportunity to actively participate and experience more realistic scenarios.
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About the author
Dr. Michael Casale is a cognitive neuroscientist whose academic research focused on understanding the biological underpinnings of learning and memory, in particular how to optimize training for a variety of learning situations. He has led multi-million dollar research projects aimed at understanding how virtual technologies can be used to facilitate the effectiveness of behavioral therapy. Dr. Casale has been published dozens of times in notable peer-reviewed journals such as Memory & Cognition and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
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