Debias to Create
From bias to breakthroughs: a science-driven workshop for creative professionals and DEI leaders to build inclusive and innovative practice.
a UCL Behavioural Insights Hub course - other training / workshops.
- Structure: one day (or adaptable to clients’ preferred schedule).
- Price: variable depending on team size etc.
- Location: In Person - @UCL, London or at clients’ location.
Contact us to enquire. Prefer a chat? Schedule a call.
The workshop
By changing perception of reality, this workshop is where DEI practice meets creative brilliance. Leveraging decades of research into human cognition, stereotype formation and creativity development, we’ll help rewire your brain to sidelining biases and unlock creative mental exploration. Backed by peer-reviewed research published in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio), we’ve achieved a 35% reduction in stereotyping and a 27% boost in creative thinking among marketeers, advertising professionals, and creatives. While organisations often invest heavily in either reducing bias or fostering innovation, this workshop offers a scientifically validated approach to achieving both—positioning you at the forefront of inclusive, data-driven advertising and beyond.
Course content
The workshop used insights gained from decades of research on human biases, decision-making, and creative process, with a specific focus on stereotypical thinking and divergent creativity and how to change them. It focuses on insights that outline how people form and retain stereotypical thought and emotion, and its linkage to creative process. It will involve highly interactive components where participants experience assumptions violations, new assumption formation, and learn strategies to unstereotype in the creative processes and team functioning. We will cover:
- The brain mechanisms behind social perception and stereotyping; Why stereotypes persist?
- How biases lead to errors in judgment and their impact on the creative process.
- The benefit of less stereotypical/more creative thinking.
- The science of regulating stereotypes: insights and tools.
- How we can incorporate unstereotype tools into creative process and team functioning.
- Case study and self-reflection exercises.
- Creatives, such as marketeers, advertising professionals and brand managers.
- DEI departments.
By the end of this workshop, participants will understand the psychological mechanisms behind unconscious bias, particularly stereotypes, and its link to creative process. They will have strategy and tools to identity and reduce these unconscious biases to create innovative and stereotype-free content. This outcome will have larger organisational impacts on creativity and innovation, inclusive workplace culture, diverse talent attraction, and socially responsible brand reputation.
This can be commissioned as a 1-day, in-person workshop.
Evidence for workshop effectiveness and impact
- A peer-reviewed paper in a high-impact academic journal directly demonstrates both the theoretical foundation and real-world effectiveness of this workshop (with Study 1 essentially modelling the workshop in practice). VIEW PAPER
- The video below introduces how this workshop engaged and made impact with previous participants and clients.
Workshop tutor
Lasana explores the brain and physiological correlates of person perception: how we see people, learn from them, make inferences about them, how they trigger our emotions, how we stereotype, dehumanize, punish, and make decision involving them, as well as how we anthropomorphise or see things that aren’t people as person-like. He has consulted with organisations including: Office of National Statistics, UK Gov. Office for Science, National Security Institute, US Institute for Peace, Unilever.
Workshop tutor
Gorkan Ahmetoglu is a leading expert in psychological profiling and assessment and a business adviser and speaker in the areas of psychological profiling, entrepreneurship, talent management, and consumer decision-making. Gorkan is the author of Personality 101. Organisations Gorkan has worked with include: UK government, HSBC, Unilever, Google, Ford, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Mars, BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5.
Dr Nuoya Tan
Workshop tutor
Nuoya Tan studies positive psychology and social behaviour, with a focus on creativity. She has worked with children and young people, and with organisations including Unilever, Alchemist, and charities in the UK and China. Nuoya has also bridged academia and industry for impact evaluation innovation.
Book a call
Book a call if you are interested in commissioning this course for a group of learners.
Book a call