Twenty-third International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Affective neuroscience is a field of study concerned with researching emotion or affect. Affective neuroscience is wide-ranging, from studies on schizophrenia to racial bias in emotional regulation. Despite the requirement of inclusion in the research subjects by funding agencies in recent years, there are clear disparities in research study populations as certain socio-demographical groups are underrepresented and are not being reported in these studies. Funding agencies have failed to distinguish between ethnic minorities, leaving minorities still underrepresented. Emotion regulation and expression varies by people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and certain patients may respond to medications differently. Diversity in research populations is needed to ensure that the research is representative of the general populations to which it applies to. There is little being done to address this issue though it remains prevalent throughout the field of affective science, resulting in inaccuracies when study results may not be applicable to diverse populations. Additionally, current solutions are limited to the graduate level. The biggest problem with solutions focused on the graduate level is that this age is not the most impactful for learning. A wide range of studies have shown adolescence as a critical period for cognition. We propose a novel intervention to address this issue on a wide scale by incorporating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs at the middle and high school level focused on not only educating students on the issue itself, but also on the field of affective science to promote more diverse students entering the field.