Our Research
Our learning methodology is backed by over fifteen years of scientific research.
BE MORE with Anu’s learning methodology is backed by over fifteen years of scientific research. We adapt existing cross-disciplinary scientific evidence into skills and tools people can apply to transform bias in their workplaces and communities. We conduct focus groups and market surveys with senior leaders across industries and test our methodology with professionals to build the content of our solutions that support breaking bias. We continue to consult our scientific advisors to adapt cutting-edge scientific evidence into shame-free and results-driven programming.
Systemic Racism
(2009 - 2012)
Anu’s research on systemic racism is the foundation of BE MORE with Anu’s science-backed, compassion-based educational content.
After witnessing the inexplicable cruelty experienced by Americans of color in the criminal justice system, Anu undertook a two-year study (2009 - 2011) to understand the historical and legal underpinnings of race-based disparities in the United States. He used the frameworks of critical race and transitional justice theories under the guidance of the late Derrick Bell and Paul van Zyl, the former Executive Secretary of South Africa’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission.(1)
The two unpublished studies: “Realizing the Constitutional Promise: Initiating Transition in America to Overcome the Legacy of White Supremacy” and “Advancing Long-Term Reconciliation in Transitioning Societies through Education and Training of Common Historical Discourse” identified that America’s racial disparities stem from a legally enforced, systematized four-rung caste ladder based on color and descent: white, Black, Indigenous, and groups legally labeled outside of the former three (e.g., AAPI, South Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, Persian, Arab); and concluded that to overcome America’s violent past and continued race-based inequality and injustice, America needs a truth and reconciliation process.(2)
Isabel Wilkerson’s NYT bestseller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020) reached similar conclusions as Anu’s research. Her scholarship further outlines the eight pillars of a caste system in any society, including America’s race-based caste system.
Subsequently in 2012, with research assistants Sara Bennett and Melika Forbes, Anu designed and led a yearlong study at the Vera Institute of Justice and the Pipeline Crisis Initiative that applied the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Framework to identify underlying root causes of systemic racism. RCA is a method of problem-solving used in science, engineering, and business to identify underlying or root causes of problems or faults. They applied this method to better explain systemic racism to various stakeholders without using the term “racism.” Research showed that many people have negative associations with the term “racism” deterring them from engaging or taking action. The study identified four underlying causes of systemic racism: Bias, Lack of Resources, Presence of Trauma, and Policies.(3) Learn more about the study.
The study’s results changed Anu’s professional trajectory from pursuing academia and public interest law to social entrepreneurship. Anu spoke about these studies with over 1,000 activists and scholars nationwide, including Winona LaDuke, Bryan Stevenson, and Eddie Glaude. After attempts to publish this research with academic partners including Princeton and Columbia, Anu recognized that his time and efforts would be better utilized by applying his research findings to innovate solutions to systemic racism. This led him to leave his legal career to found BE MORE in January 2014.
Anu with Indigenous Author & Activist Winona LaDuke on White Earth Nation, Minnesota in 2013
1 Critical Race Theory is a practice of interrogating race and racism in society that first emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship. Learn more: American Bar Association (2021). Transitional Justice theories provide frameworks for how a society that has experienced widespread, systematic violence and violations of human rights can respond to create possibilities of peace, reconciliation, and democracy. Learn more: International Center for Transitional Justice (2009).
2 Gupta, A. (2011) “Advancing Long-Term Reconciliation in Transitioning Societies through Education and Training of Common Historical Discourse,” unpublished. Gupta, A. (2011) “Realizing the Constitutional Promise: Initiating Transition in America to Overcome the Legacy of White Supremacy,” unpublished.
3 Gupta, A., Bennett, S. & Forbes, M. (2012) “Root Causes of Race-based Disparities in Social, Economic, and Political Life Outcomes of Americans,” unpublished.
Mindfulness & Bias Reduction
(2014 - 2019)
BE MORE with Anu’s current focus is training people in tools to break bias. This is because bias is the only component of systemic racism that individuals can control. The other three -- Lack of Resources, Presence of Trauma, and Policies -- require collective action.
To tackle bias, Anu conducted a thorough literature review on interventions that social scientists have tested to demonstrate bias reduction. These interventions included mindfulness-based tools that trained people in slowing down so they can strengthen intergroup trust and interrupt the socially conditioned habits of stereotyping.
Having personally studied and experienced the benefits of mindfulness meditation, particularly the efficacious framework of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Anu became a trained meditation teacher and translated the various bias reduction interventions into BE MORE’s proprietary PRISM Toolkit®. (4) The PRISM Toolkit® uses mindfulness meditation, which is the practice of noticing thoughts, emotions, and body sensations as they arise in the present moment, as the basis for breaking the habit of bias. PRISM stands for five science-based tools: Perspective-Taking (5), PRosocial Behavior (6), Individuation (7), Stereotype Replacement (8), and Mindfulness (9).
Anu tested whether the PRISM tools could be taught to everyday people to support them in breaking bias. Starting 2015, he taught PRISM tools in all of his public and virtual trainings, keynotes, and presentations reaching over 80,000 individuals - from Rabbis and Buddhist monks to C-suite executives, physicians, lawyers, teachers, and firefighters - at over 200 organizations. He also published a peer-reviewed academic article on the emotional affect or vedana of bias. This paper was presented at the first conference on the second foundation of mindfulness at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS) in 2017.
A public mindfulness workshop to break bias in New York City, 2018.
4 Anu received his 200 and 500-hour Yoga and Meditation Teacher Training certification form ISHTA Yoga and advanced 18-month Mindful Yoga and Meditation Training (MYMT) certification from Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He also participated in the month-long meditation training with The Woodenfish Program in Taiwan.
5 Perspective-Taking: The practice of imagining other people’s experiences to strengthen collective identity and social cohesion.
6 PRosocial Behavior: The practice of cultivating kindness, empathy, optimism, gratitude, and joy.
7 Individuation: The practice of differentiating individuals from group-based stereotypes by cultivating curiosity.
8 Stereotype Replacement: The practice of noticing negative stereotypes and replacing them with real-life positive examples.
9 Mindfulness: The practice of noticing and being aware of the present moment.
Bias Reduction via Virtual Learning
(2015 - 2019)
Using the learning methodology of Bloom’s Taxonomy, we translated our research and PRISM tools into bite-sized educational content to be taught online and on mobile. We undertook this research for three reasons: to counter the misconception that DEI and bias reduction trainings require in-person facilitation; to measure learner progress in knowledge and new habit adoption; and to bring our knowledge and toolkit to people at scale.
With over 200 participants, including members of AAMC and AMWA, we demonstrated that our desired audience of busy professionals like physicians and nurses preferred our online Breaking Bias courses for three reasons: they offered flexibility as they could be completed from anywhere at any time; they saved time by focusing on learning essential concepts instead of managing group dynamics; and most importantly, learning and practicing the PRISM tools strengthened curiosity and optimism among participants. Our Breaking Bias in Healthcare and Breaking Unconscious Bias courses are the result of these learnings.
The research to test the efficacy of our virtual training was funded by the New York State Health Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Brooklyn Community Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the American Heart Association.
Subsequently, Anu served as the Principal Investigator of a National Science Foundation study, “A Mobile Learning System to Reduce Unconscious Bias Among Healthcare Providers,” which demonstrated that we can also teach our content and PRISM on a mobile interface.
In the future, we’d like to build an AI-driven learning platform that can assess and personalize the breaking bias journey based on individual needs.
Anu & the BE MORE team with Dr. Tiffani Johnson at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to plan their NSF-funded research, 2019.
Anu’s Published Works
Anurag Gupta (2018) Vedana of Bias: Latent Likes and Dislikes Fuelling Barriers to Human Connection, Contemporary Buddhism, 19:1, 145-159, DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2018.1453238
Anurag Gupta (2011) L3Cs and B Corps: New Corporate Forms Fertilizing the Field between Traditional For-Profit and Nonprofit Corporations. 8 N.Y.U. J.L. & Bus. 203.
Anurag Gupta & Maria Graterol (2010) Girls Learn Everything: Realizing Right to Education through CEDAW. 16 N.E. J.Intl. & Comp. L. 49-88.
Key Sources for Our Work
Unconscious Bias
Brewer, M. B. (1988). A dual-process model of impression formation. In T. K. Srull and R. S.Wyer, Jr. (Eds.), Advances in social cognition. 1: 1-36. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cuddy, Amy J.C., Fiske, Susan T.; Glick, Peter (2008). "Warmth and Competence as Universal Dimensions of Social Perception: The Stereotype Content Model and the BIAS Map" (PDF). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Elsevier. 40 (1): 61–149. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(07)00002-0.
Greenwald, A.G. and Banaji, M.R. (2013). Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. New York: Delacorte Press.
Greenwald, A.G., McGhee, D.E., and Schwartz, J.L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 74(6): 1464-1480.
Steele, Claude. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi : and other clues to how stereotypes affect us. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
PRISM® Tools to Break Bias
Dasgupta, N., and Asgari, S. (2004). Seeing Is Believing: Exposure To Counterstereotypic Women Leaders And Its Effect On The Malleability Of Automatic Gender Stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 40: 642.
Dasgupta, N. and Greenwald, A.G. (2001). On the Malleability of Automatic Attitudes: Combating Automatic Prejudice with Images of Admired and Disliked Individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 81(5): 800-814.
Dovidio, John F.; Gaertner, Samuel L. (2010). Reducing Intergroup Bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model (Essays in Social Psychology).
Fiske, S.T. and Neuberg, S.L. (1990). A Continuum Of Impression Formation, From Category-Based To Individuating Processes: Influences Of Information And Motivation On Attention And Interpretation. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances In Experimental Social Psychology (23: 1-74). New York: Academic Press.
Kabat-Zinn J. and University of Massachusetts Medical Center/Worcester. Stress Reduction Clinic. (2005). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks.
Kang, Y., Gray, J.R., and Dovidio, J.F. (2014). The nondiscriminating heart: Lovingkindness meditation training decreases implicit intergroup bias. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 143(3): 1306-1313.
Lueke, A. and Gibson, B. (2014). Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Implicit Age and Race Bias: The Role of Reduced Automaticity of Responding. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (2011). Mindfulness Meditation Is Associated With Structural Changes in the Brain. Research Spotlight.
Stephan, W.G., and Finlay, K. (1999). The Role of Empathy in Improving Intergroup Relations. Journal of Social Issues. 55(4): 729-743.
Todd, A.R., Bodenhausen, G.V., Richeson, J. A., and Galinsky, A.D. (2011). Perspective Taking Combats Automatic Expressions Of Racial Bias: Perspective Taking Combats Automatic Expressions Of Racial Bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 100: 1027-1042.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Studies
Agarwal, P. (2018). Forbes. Here Is How Bias Can Affect Recruitment In Your Organization.
Axios HR. (2020). Why Workforce Diversity Is A Huge Competitive Advantage in 2020.
Ayanian, JZ (2015). Harvard Business Review. The Costs of Racial Bias in Healthcare.
Bate, E. (2020). Camelback Ventures. Racial Equity in Philanthropy: Using White Privilege for Good.
CEO Action for Racial Equity. (2020) The Pledge.
Chang E.H., Milkman, K.L., Zarrow, L.J., Brabaw, K., Gromet, D.M., Rebele, R., Massey, C., Duckworth, A.L., and Grant, A. (2019). Harvard Business Review. Does Diversity Training Work the Way It’s Supposed To?
Claytor, C.P., Crockett, D., Fowler, W.D, and Raspberry, P. (2020). Sephora. The Racial Bias in Retail Study.
Dobbin, F. and Kalev, A. (2016). Harvard Business Review. Why Diversity Programs Fail: And what works better.
Dorsey, C., Bradach, J., and Kim, P. (2020). The Bridgespan Group & Echoing Green. Racial Equity and Philanthropy: Disparities in Funding for Leaders of Color Leave Impact on the Table.
Hinton, E. and Reed, C. (2018). Vera Institute of Justice. An Unjust Burden: The Disparate Treatment of Black Americans in the Criminal Justice System.
Holger, D. (2019). Wall Street Journal. The Business Case for More Diversity.
Howley, K.D.R. (2020). Smithsonian Magazine. Deep Biases Prevent Diverse Talent From Advancing.
Hunt, V., Yee L., Prince, S., and Dixon-Fyle, S.. (2018). McKinsey. Delivering through diversity.
Manyika, J., Silberg, J., and Presten, B. (2019). Harvard Business Review. What Do We Do About the Biases in AI?
Morris, A. (2018). Neighborhood Funders Group. Choosing to be a Liberated Gatekeeper.
Myers, V. (2014). American Bar Association. Why Effective Retention Requires Attention to Our Implicit Biases.
Rosen, Ellen (2020). NYT. Trying to Correct Banking’s Racial Imbalance.
Turner, A. (2018). W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Business Case for Racial Equity: A strategy for growth.
Villarosa, L. (2020). NYT Magazine. ‘A Terrible Price’: The Deadly Racial Disparities of Covid-19 in America.