Last week I wrote about how to be a good person. I adapted those concepts from the book, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh. This week I’m sharing additional helpful insights I gleaned from the book.
The author is a social psychologist who is an expert in unconscious biases of ordinary good people. She offers a wealth of helpful advice based on the latest research regarding how people think and behave, especially with regard to unconscious bias.
The book is written in a very readable, friendly tone, and it does an excellent job of explaining why we struggle to be the good people we want to be, and what we can do to become better people. I highly recommend it.
3 simple but powerful concepts that help you become a better person
Honor the name
My name is Lisa. Every now and then someone spells it Liza instead. This irks me! Lisa is a short, familiar name. Easy to pronounce and spell. How can they get it wrong?
We don’t like people messing with our name, do we?
Now think back to the last time you or I encountered an unfamiliar name. One with too many syllables to sound out at a glance. Names like Arphaxad, Vercingetorix, or Mephistopheles.
Chances are, when you come upon a name that looks complicated, you find a way to avoid saying it. After all, we don’t want to insult someone by mispronouncing their name. (Or so we tell ourselves. Actually we don’t want to risk looking like an idiot while stumbling through unfamiliar, multi-syllabic words.)
Problem is, all humans like to hear their name. When we skip over someone’s name, we’re choosing our own comfort over honoring them. And we’re also subtly rejecting them as “other.” All because of a few syllables.
The moral of this story is to show respect to everyone by doing your best to say their full name. And then by listening attentively if they choose to correct your pronunciation.
People with names that are not typical for their locale face this avoid-your-name issue every day. We can do our part to make their life a little lighter by honoring their name.
Be aware of unconscious bias
We all have a gap between how our unconscious mind perceives things and the values we espouse with our conscious mind. This gap means that we make instinctive and unconscious choices that are contrary to how we want to act (or even how we perceive ourselves to be acting). This is unconscious bias.
To be blunt, we are all more biased than we think we are. Since birth we’ve been absorbing preferences and judgments (ie. biases) from our families, our society, and the media. These biases lurk in our subconscious where we can’t see them and rarely notice their effects.
Here’s a fun example of unconscious bias at work: During my college years, a friend of mine invited my roommate and I to join an Ultimate Frisbee league because he was tired of all the swearing. He was betting that the other male players had an unconscious gender bias that told them swearing was not acceptable in front of females. Sure enough, when we appeared, the swearing decreased considerably—without my roommate or I saying a single word.
I never said bias was always harmful. I am saying bias is very powerful
Unconscious bias is sort of like allergies. We can’t cure them, but we can work to lessen their severity and we can adopt strategies to help us overcome their effects.
The first step toward overcoming unconscious bias is to admit it exists. We must quit pretending we aren’t biased and accept the fact that we are. Next, we can begin to intentionally expose ourselves to a wider diversity of people, ideas, and experiences. (Sort of like getting allergy shots to lessen the severity of an allergic reaction.) The least biased people tend to be those who regularly interact with a broadly diverse group of friends and coworkers.
We can also pay attention to where and how our biases might be affecting our decisions and behaviors. For example: Say I discover my Facebook friends are 90% female. I could counteract this gender bias by intentionally friending more men in the future.
If you want to learn more about your biases, try taking one or more of the implicit bias self-tests developed by Harvard.
Ordinary privilege—the stuff we take for granted
The other day I was in the grocery store contemplating the display of yogurt choices. I noticed a lady in a scooter-type grocery cart beside me. Much of the yogurt was on shelves beyond her reach, so I asked if I could get something for her. She gratefully accepted.
This is an example of ordinary privilege. I take it for granted that I can reach any flavor of yogurt I want, but the encounter showed me that able-bodiedness is a privilege.
Most of us don’t consider ourselves to be privileged, but in fact we are brimming with ordinary privileges like mobility, literacy, a mastery of English, and names those around us can pronounce.
When we consider any criteria from gender to height to skin color, those who fit society’s idea of “normal” have ordinary privilege. Minorities, immigrants, the handicapped, and other marginalized groups may not enjoy these ordinary assets we take for granted.
Do I bring this up so we can all feel guilty about our privileged lives? No.
Instead, by being aware of our ordinary privilege, we can look for ways to use it for good. For example, in the yogurt encounter above, I could have kept my privilege to myself. Instead I used it to help the lady overcome her handicap. It was a simple, ordinary encounter that lasted less than a minute. However, if I hadn’t been paying attention, I wouldn’t have noticed how my ordinary ability could be of help. Like a lot of things in life, awareness is half the battle
Another way we can use our ordinary privilege is by fighting prejudice and bias. Studies show that people are more willing to accept correction for improper behavior when it comes from someone “like” them. This means white people have a better chance of helping other white people adopt anti-racist concepts than people of color do. It means men have a better chance of helping their male peers value women coworkers. It means the people who don’t have a problem are often better suited to bring changes than those who do—all because of ordinary privilege.
I know it’s not easy. We may feel it’s not our place to get involved in an issue that doesn’t directly affect us. Understanding ordinary privilege may give us the courage to speak up even when we feel like an imposter.
Which of these concepts do you find most challenging? What small step can you take today to fight bias or welcome diversity in your life?
