NeuroReal Series: Episode 7: When Bias Becomes Background Noise: Waking Up the Brain to Injustice

Georgina Brown (hershe)
6 days ago
2 min read

Ever walked into an office where sexist jokes were the norm, or where only one kind of person ever seemed to get promoted?

No one flinched. No one challenged it.

And if you raised an eyebrow, you were met with:“Oh, that’s just how it is around here.”

Congratulations — you’ve just encountered habituation. Not a toxic personality trait. A neural one.

What Is Habituation?

Habituation is your brain’s way of saying: “Nothing new here — move along.”

It’s a basic neurological principle. When exposed to the same stimulus repeatedly — a sound, a smell, a behaviour — the brain starts to tune it out. To conserve energy, your neurons stop reacting.

You don’t notice your clothes against your skin. You stop hearing the hum of the fridge. And, if you're not careful…

You stop noticing exclusion.

How This Plays Out in the Workplace

When microaggressions, exclusionary language, or bias are persistent, they become neurologically familiar — to everyone involved.

The target of the behaviour may stop reporting it, even noticing it.
Bystanders stop reacting or challenging.
Leaders stop believing it’s even a problem.

Over time, the behaviour doesn’t just go unchallenged — it becomes normalised. Worse still, it becomes defended.

Cue phrases like:

“He’s old-school, he doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“She’s just sensitive.”
“We’ve always done it this way.”

And the exclusion rolls on.

Why It’s So Dangerous

Because this isn’t just social complacency. It’s neural fatigue.

When the brain is overstimulated by injustice it can’t control, it downregulates the response. That includes areas of empathy, alertness, and motivation. It becomes easier not to see.

Which means the people most harmed by exclusion often get less support over time, not more.

Three NeuroNudges to Disrupt the Drift

1. Interrupt the Autopilot

Make it normal in meetings to ask: “Whose voices haven’t we heard?” or “What are we not seeing because we’re used to it?”New questions = new neural patterns.

2. Re-sensitise Your Circuits

Expose your brain to stories, voices, and perspectives it doesn’t usually hear. Think of it as re-training your empathy reflex.

3. Track the Tolerated

Instead of only focusing on headline-grabbing incidents, ask: “What’s been quietly allowed to persist?” Inclusion is less about grand gestures and more about disruption of the routine.

What NIMM Does Differently

The NeuroInclusive Maturity Model (NIMM) recognises that lasting exclusion isn’t just organisational — it’s neurological.

That’s why NIMM provides:

Habitual prompts to reawaken awareness
Cultural rituals to spotlight the “normal”
Structured feedback to build noticing muscles

This isn’t about finger-pointing. It’s about waking up from the trance.

Because once you notice, you can’t unsee.

Final Word

Bias that’s repeated becomes background noise.

But background noise still shapes the mood, the message — and the culture.

Inclusion begins by tuning back in.

Let’s turn the volume up on what we’ve grown numb to — and start changing the soundtrack.

Next in the NeuroReal series: Episdoe 8: “You Can’t Build Trust on a Deadline” — How Oxytocin Fuels Belonging (and What Kills It).