Getting to Know Calvin Lai

Many of you will have seen by now that this year’s State of the Libraries meeting on December 6 features special guest speaker Calvin K. Lai. (If you haven’t yet registered on Eventbrite, please take a moment to do so. Enter SOTL2017 when prompted for a password.) In advance of his visit to Rutgers, let’s learn a bit more about his research.

As director of research for Project Implicit, Lai explores implicit biases, or the tensions between our conscious experience and unconscious mind and the resultant disconnect between our thoughts and actions. These biases are evident when, for instance, our attitudes about particular groups of people (based on their gender, race, religion, weight, ability, and so on) are at odds with our explicitly stated values about those groups.

Lai’s research focuses on different approaches to changing our implicit biases and the question of whether changing these biases is actually the best approach for mitigating their effects on our behavior. He also offers lectures and workshops to organizations that discuss how unwanted influences can impair organizational performance.

If you simply can’t wait to learn more, visit the Project Implicit website to complete an Implicit Association Test on your own or check out Who, Me? Biased?, a video series on implicit bias from the New York Times that features Lai (above).