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Diverse Joy

Diverse Joy

By: Diverse Joy
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 Infusing science, practical skills, and joy into diversity discussions! Follow @DiverseJoy on social media! In each episode, Dr. William T. L. Cox and Dr. Amber Nelson share something that is bringing them joy, talk about a diversity topic, share stories, teach a bias habit-breaking skill, and give a media recommendation of something that brings them joy. Their goal is jointly to provide entertainment and education, and they infuse science, practicality, and most of all, joy into conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Every episode also exists as a standalone educational video that you can find on YouTube, or through our website at DiverseJoy.com. Diverse Joy is hosted by Dr. William T. L. Cox and Dr. Amber Nelson, produced by Eric Roman Beining, with music by Jay Arner. New episodes release the first Wednesday of each month. Learn more at DiverseJoy.com. Development of the first season of Diverse Joy was sponsored in part by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R35GM128888. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Production is also supported by donations to our nonprofit, Inequity Agents of Change. Learn more at BiasHabit.com.Copyright 2023 All rights reserved. Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • S3E05: Why Belonging Matters As a Multi-Cultural Immigrant With Guest Xizhou Xie

    S3E05: Why Belonging Matters As a Multi-Cultural Immigrant With Guest Xizhou Xie
    Feb 4 2026
    This episode, we invite special guest Xizhou Xie (pronounced “She-Joe She-uh”), an artist, statistician, and Chinese-American immigrant. Xizhou’s joy this episode is her wonderful cats, Shadow and Kit-Kat! Amber’s joy is a local BIPOC community group, and Will’s joy is his and producer Eric Roman’s annual “Soup-er Bowl” party. For the main discussion topic on belonging, Xizhou shares some of her story of how she came to the U.S., how she thinks of belonging (or lack thereof) as an immigrant in the U.S., and that in recent times it’s been especially difficult for immigrants in the United States. The hosts discuss related concepts like racial battle fatigue and how to address ambiguous bias. During Story Time, Xizhou shares a negative story about anti-Asian racism, especially highlighting how overt hate can happen anywhere, even in places we hope are more safe or accepting. Her positive story relates to having a booth at an LGBTQ+ Pride event, where she felt amazing community, safety, and belonging, even without identifying as a member of LGBTQ+ community. The positive story leads to great discussion about cross-group solidarity across stigmatized identities. Xizhou’s statistical expertise was wonderful to have as we discussed the answer to our question, “What are some challenges when working with data comparing identity groups?” Even if you are not a scientist or mathematician, this is an excellent primer on how to understand statistics that compare racial, LGBTQ+, or other groups, which can more easily be overblown or misrepresented. The Bias Habit-Breaking Skill is Cognitive Inertia, which perpetuates our preexisting ideas in a number of ways. These include Attentional Spotlight, in which our attention is biased such that we notice more confirmatory evidence, Confirmation Bias, in which we give more weight to confirmatory than disconfirmatory evidence, and Untested Assumptions, when there is no evidence at all, but our own assumptions are a mental rehearsal that can strengthen stereotypes. Xizhou was an author with Will on one of the big research papers providing evidence for some of these phenomena! Xizhou and Amber share additional examples of Untested Assumptions, specifically related to assumptions that Asian folks don’t speak English well. Xizhou’s joyful recommendation is the whimsical Icelandic-Chinese musician Laufey (Loy-vey), who is “making jazz music cool again.” Her music gives you “main character energy” and fills you with joy! Check out Xizhou's art! https://xizhouxie.com/ https://www.facebook.com/xizhouxieart Dr. Cox’s book becomes available for preorder! The publisher is University of California Press, and the full title is Overcoming Bias Habits: An Evidence-Based Guide to Creating a Joyfully Inclusive World. Check your small local bookstores! From Amazon: https://a.co/d/iwnakbM From Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/overcoming-bias-habits-william-t-l-cox-phd/1148276458?ean=9780520410428 We now have merch! Buy some to support the show at https://www.biashabit.com/store Follow Diverse Joy on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Threads, and Bluesky.
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    54 mins
  • S3E04: Learning About Bias in Kids

    S3E04: Learning About Bias in Kids
    Jan 7 2026
    It’s our New Year’s episode (happy 2026 everybody)! For this mid-winter episode, Will shares the joy of going to the Lake Geneva Winterfest America’s Snow Sculpting Invitational™ and the delightful sights of artfully crafted snow sculptures there, and Amber’s joy is discovering new-to-her music and musicians like Doechii, Panic Shack, and Olivia Dean! The discussion topic is Learning About Bias in Kids, including how kids learn bias from their environments and peers, and how they often display bias, even when their parents don’t think they will, due to not having learned to filter their thoughts yet. Kids learn especially strongly from modeling the behavior of their peers. They also pick up on subtle cues from their parents’ and other adults’ behaviors, even subtle, unintentional biases. Amber gives some great advice about how to react when kids point out differences they see in other people (spoiler: avoiding it because it is uncomfortable is not the answer!). In story time, we share a listener story about a kid who thought romantic couples had to be same-race (since those types of couples are much more prominent than mixed-race couples), and a story about a time a kid was thoughtful about gender identity and pronouns–and even corrected an authority figure. This episode’s question was “Can dogs be racist?” (Which is more accurately, “Can dogs be racially biased?” since “racist” and “racism” are about systems of oppression, which dogs are not active participants of.) We discuss some of the ways dogs can learn racial biases from their owners–which actually ties back to the ways that kids learn the same things from their parents. This episode’s bias habit-breaking skill involves understanding and undermining Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, which happens when our expectations about someone else lead us to behave in ways that bring out the behavior we expected. Will discusses this concept using examples from a group of probation officers he worked with, who had a policy that might create self-fulfilling prophecies with recidivism rates. The joyful recommendation this time comes from Will, who recommends the diverse, intriguing, hilarious, genre-bending television show, The Afterparty (2022-2023), starring the amazing Tiffany Haddish (an Apple TV+ exclusive that ran for two seasons). Dr. Cox’s book becomes available for preorder! The publisher is University of California Press, and the full title is Overcoming Bias Habits: An Evidence-Based Guide to Creating a Joyfully Inclusive World. Check your small local bookstores! From Amazon: https://a.co/d/iwnakbM From Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/overcoming-bias-habits-william-t-l-cox-phd/1148276458?ean=9780520410428 We now have merch! Buy some to support the show at https://www.biashabit.com/store Follow Diverse Joy on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Threads, and Bluesky.
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    57 mins
  • S3E03: Mind-Body Connection: The Body Keeps the Joy

    S3E03: Mind-Body Connection: The Body Keeps the Joy
    Dec 3 2025
    Will and Amber’s joys this holiday season relate to holiday traditions: Amber’s recalls how her mom would give her and her brother gift every day of the month leading up to Christmas as kids, and then segueing that into gifting board games as adults, and getting to spend time together playing them; and Will talks the current tradition of he and Eric Roman getting Lego Star Wars Advent Calendars from past guest (and friend) Sandy Eichel and their wife! For this episode’s main discussion, the hosts draw on Amber’s clinical expertise in discussing wellness and the mind–body connection. This can be especially relevant around the holidays because of the stress and pressures to create joyful holiday memories, or just how the holidays can lead to spending time with extended family that might be trying. They discuss how the amygdala and prefrontal cortex influence our moods and behavior, as well as methods to bring ourselves back to a state of calm after emotions strongly impact us: One such regulatory skill uses the acronym SHINE, including your Senses, Humming, Inner Joy, Notice Color, and Exhale. This episode is also the official introduction of the Wellness Skill segment, something we’ve occasionally had but never labeled. In story time, both the positive and negative stories expand on the mind–body connection, with Amber sharing how she recognized the ways in which an unpleasant colleague was causing negative reactions in her body, and Will sharing about recognizing when aroused states (including learning another acronym, HALTS - Hungry, Angry, Late/Lonely, Tired, or Surprised) can lead to more bias. This month’s audience question asks how mind–body connection may bring in special concerns for members of stigmatized groups, with Will and Amber addressing that topic, and tying the response back to previous discussions of racial battle fatigue. This episode’s bias habit-breaking skill involves Norm Enforcement, where people act in ways to enforce norms, including norms that arise from stereotypes, because our brains “like” when people conform to norms and “dislike” when people violate them. Amber’s joyful recommendation this episode is Jingle Jangle, a lovely musical Afro-Futuristic Christmas movie with a Black-centered cast. She also shouted out additional Black-centered Christmas movies including This Christmas, Last Holiday, and The Preacher’s Wife. Happy holidays, everyone! Now, go find your joy. Dr. Cox’s book becomes available for preorder! The publisher is University of California Press, and the full title is Overcoming Bias Habits: An Evidence-Based Guide to Creating a Joyfully Inclusive World. Check your small local bookstores! From Amazon: https://a.co/d/iwnakbM From Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/overcoming-bias-habits-william-t-l-cox-phd/1148276458?ean=9780520410428 We now have merch! Buy some to support the show at https://www.biashabit.com/store Follow Diverse Joy on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Threads, and Bluesky.
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    57 mins
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