This is the 10% Happier Podcast.

I'm Dan Harris.

Hey, everybody.

We all, of course, know that bias can lead to massive problems in our culture.

But we might think that prejudice and tribalism are problems for other people to solve.

That assumption came back to bite my guest today when she embarked upon a journalistic

investigation of what causes humans to be biased and how we can deal with it.

Shandered up seeing that she had some humbling blind spots and assumptions of her own.

Jessica Nordell is a science and culture journalist who is written for the Atlantic and the New

York Times, among other publications.

She was educated at MIT and Harvard.

Her new book is called The End of Bias of Beginning, the science and practice of overcoming

unconscious bias.

I love this interview.

She's fascinating.

We talked about why we humans evolved to have biases, what happens in our bodies when

somebody challenges our biases, why some of the most popular personal and institutional

strategies for confronting bias don't work.

The role, mindfulness and loving kindness meditation can play in reducing bias and the

surprising to me at least power of studying history in this regard.

I should say this is part one of a week long series we're doing on bias on Wednesday.

We have Robert Wright, author of the fantastic book Why Buddhism Is True, who has done some

...