This paper conducted a preliminary study of reviewing and exploring bias strategies using a framework of a different discipline: change management. The hypothesis here is: If the major problem of implicit bias strategies is that they do not translate into actual changes in behaviors, then it could be helpful to learn from studies that have contributed to successful change interventions such as reward management, social neuroscience, health behavioral change, and cognitive behavioral therapy. The result of this integrated approach is: (1) current bias strategies can be improved and new ones can be developed with insight from adjunct study fields in change management; (2) it could be more sustainable to invest in a holistic and proactive bias strategy approach that targets the social environment, eliminating the very condition under which biases arise; and (3) while implicit biases are automatic, future studies should invest more on strategies that empower people as “change agents” who can act proactively to regulate the very environment that gives rise to their biased thoughts and behaviors.
This paper reviews and discusses the neuroscience of a dynamic, contextual and polycultural self. Advances in neuro-science suggests that: (1) the brain can acquire contradictory cultural systems at the same time; (2) all three groups ofbi/multi/ and mono-cultural individuals can activate corresponding cultural patterns of the self, based on the cultural cues given in a specific cultural context; (3) individuals may be born with some genetic predispositions and these interact with the cultural environment, such that the same genetic predisposition may have opposite expressions of the self in different cultural contexts. Based on these insights, future research could invest more in (1) understanding theneuroscience of polycultural and global citizens who may have a universal identity; (2) advancing new identity development models for monocultural individuals who have the potential of a dynamic, contextual and polycultural self,but don’t benefit from living in a diverse cultural environment; and (3) because people can be both products and producers of culture, future research can focus on ‘technologies of the self’, in the sense that individuals, organisationsand governments can promote human agency (i.e. people as producers/authors of culture), proactively raise awareness and support the cultivation of a dynamic, contextual and polycultural self.
