Anderson Lecture: Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji

The Anderson Lecture Series welcomes Harvard psychology researcher Mahzarin Banaji, co-author of “Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People,” presenting her research on implicit social cognition and unconscious bias.

Banaji’s research seeks to understand the hidden biases in the human mind based on a lifetime of exposure to societal stereotypes and attitudes. Knowledge of these biases may help people adapt their beliefs and behaviors so as to be more fair when making judgments of and interacting with others.

Banaji received her doctorate from Ohio State University in 1986. Her significant research contributions have been recognized by a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association in 2007 and the Diener Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology in 2009. In 2016, she received both the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science for a “lifetime of significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology” and the Donald Campbell Award for Distinguished Research in Social Psychology from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.