Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: Screening and Talk by Social Psychologist Mahzarin Banaji

Science on Screen at the Coolidge Corner Theatre pairs Stanley Kramer’s groundbreaking 1967 film with a talk on the science of prejudice by Harvard social psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, a pioneer in the study of unconscious bias.

"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" features Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (in their last on-screen pairing) as the Draytons, a liberal-minded couple whose progressive leanings are put to the test when they discover their daughter's fiance is black. Sidney Poitier stars as the successful and respected Dr. John Wade Prentice, who challenges the Draytons' preconceived notions during dinner one evening. The film earned Oscars for Heburn and screenwriter William Rose.

Guest speaker Mahzarin Banaji is Richard Clarke Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology at Harvard. She has spent over 20 years studying the implicit and explicit prejudices of both adults and children. Her findings have uncovered that all of us carry unconscious attitudes about race, age and gender that sometimes run contrary to our admitted beliefs. Her groundbreaking research includes the use of methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a quiz that utilizes word and image associations to measure bias.

Science on Screen is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston and New Scientist magazine.