Change the Wallpaper is a much-needed book on the psychology of social change. Drawing on 25 years of Nilanjana Dasgupta’s original research together with other scholars’ work from multiple fields, the book zeroes in on local culture—showing how the culture of a neighborhood, workplace, school, or university signals what’s good and valued and what’s not. Wallpaper is the metaphor Dasgupta uses to speak about the ingredients of local culture that are hidden in plain sight. By combining science with storytelling, the book shows us how unseen norms, practices, relationships, and physical design of places increase inequality. Once we notice the wallpaper and understand its impacts, the book points to actionable steps that we can take, collectively with others, to steer the local culture incrementally and systematically toward greater justice and opportunity.

What is distinctive about this book is that it connects individual action to social relationships to collective action to move the needle. One person’s action alone is powerless in the face of a strong culture. The book also provides a compelling answer as to why traditional diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have yielded limited benefits and sometimes backfired, and why learning about implicit bias alone doesn’t lead to behavior change.

Most books about bias, inequality, and social change either focus on individual sources of bias and belief change or societal sources of bias and policy change, not both. Change the Wallpaper connects the dots by showing how the local spaces we live in nudge everyday beliefs and behavior to create small changes in individuals and their relationships with others that go unnoticed. Such small changes in multiple people accumulate over time to create consistent unequal outcomes at the local level. Multiply this across many settings and we have a systemic problem.

The good news is that the local culture is a locus for both harm and potential benefit. Once we become aware of the subtle nudges of the wallpaper, we can act with purpose, collectively with others, to steer the local situation toward more just structural changes. Sitting on a foundation of rigorous social science research along with stories of ordinary people as examples, this book provides a roadmap for everyday people and organizational leaders to create real change. For people interested in equality and social justice, frustrated by the lack of progress, and looking for fresh solutions to use in their lives, read Change the Wallpaper.