Brauer: Better diversity training is built on research, not intuition

UW-Madison psychology Professor Markus Brauer is focused on your good behavior. Throwing your cans and bottles in the recycling? Avoiding aimless Internet browsing during work hours? Offering your seat on the bus to someone less able to stand in the aisle? Brauer's research explores how to promote that sort of civil behavior - which means it sometimes delves into behaviors such as racism that are not at all civil. Brauer teaches workshops aimed at reducing prejudice and discrimination in the workplace, emphasizing strategies backed by both good intentions and sound science. Q: What's wrong with typical approaches to diversity training? A: Everyone has an opinion about diversity, and many people believe they know what should be done - if only we did this and this, then the whole issue would be solved. The only problem is if you subject many of those ideas to empirical tests, they don't hold up. Take a strategy that doesn't seem to work, like putting people belonging to different social groups in the same room, and having them talk about their identity or how they feel. It doesn't sound bad, but you have to look at how these discussions actually go.