The social life of the diversity, equity and inclusion brain: Credibility of DEI-related scientific evidence

Dozens of DEI white papers, trainings, and materials highlight findings in the social cognitive neuroscience literature about the neural correlates of social exclusion. Early fMRI studies propose that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (AI) process emotional distress underlying both physical and social pain (e.g., Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). DEI practitioners often use these findings to urge business leaders to treat social exclusion with the same importance that they treat physical harms at work, presumably because social and physical pain share similar neural correlates. Other examples include findings related implicit attitudes, social belonging, intergroup bias, discrimination, and fixed versus growth mindsets.

We aim to understand whether research-inflected DEI design content is more likely than non-content to motivate people to be more equitable works. We are particularly interested in audiences such as scientists with deep expertise in their own area of research who then participate in DEI initiatives as employees working in education institutions, laboratories, medical institutions and companies. A second goal of this research is to examine why, when and how DEI practitioners access scientific knowledge to advance DEI-related initiatives and how it spreads across networks of business industries.

This program of research started in 2021 and is the major thrust of our lab’s current research. 

Collaborators

Alfredo Spagna, Jennifer Manly, Peter Bearman