TRANSCRIPT: How To Develop Your Cross-Cultural Skills

Speaker: Dr. Peggy Mitchell Clarke (Formerly Dr. Peggy Mitchell Norwood)

Cultural Responsiveness

Welcome. I'm Dr. Peggy Mitchell-Norwood. I'm a clinical psychologist and mental health consultant, and I also was a psychology professor for 19 years. Today our topic is cultural responsiveness and inclusiveness. Cultural responsiveness is a process of becoming more culturally aware and gaining insight into your own current values, while evaluating your perceptions and perspectives about those who are different from you.

Cultural responsiveness requires you to identify beliefs, emotions, and/or behaviors that may interfere with interpersonal interactions, and also to identify strategies to overcome those barriers.

Now You See Me, Now You Don't

Let me ask you this, do you really see me? Now you see me, and now you don't. Can you describe what kind of earrings I'm wearing? Do I have on a watch? Chances are you can't answer these questions because you really weren't paying that much attention, and you didn't realize that knowing about my jewelry might be useful information. This is just a small demonstration to illustrate that we all miss things when we're not paying attention. We see people every day but we sometimes don't really see them.

A Mindset & A Decision To Really See

I think of inclusiveness and cultural awareness as a mindset and a decision to really see. It's the mindset and a consciousness to choose to notice who is present and who is missing. Cultural awareness and inclusiveness mean engaging, including, and incorporating everyone's perspectives and different talents and skills and paying attention to an valuing everyone's unique contribution.

Inclusiveness Matters

Inclusiveness is important because as the old Gestalt saying goes, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Inclusiveness takes into consider not just race and culture but also age, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomics, religion, physical abilities, mental illness, language, and even veteran status. It's a common misperception that we can ever be culturally competent in all these different areas. We can never know everything there is to know about another culture or group, but we can be culturally responsive and more aware.

What Do You See?

If you've ever taken psych 101 you've probably seen this image before? What do you see? Some students see a young lady, some see an old lady, and some see both.

Depending on your perspective you'll see something different. Your perspective is your particular attitude towards something or your point of view.

Are you ethnocentric? Results

Did we tend to prefer the same things? If so, it's possibly because we share similar cultures. But if not, you may have felt your answers were the right answers. That's because of ethnocentrism, the natural tendency to feel our own culture, religion, race, or nation is superior, and to judge others by our own frame of reference.

Our Prism

Maybe you remember this quote from "To Kill a Mockingbird." "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." The problem with ethnocentrism is that it becomes our prism and it's hard to see things from and value someone else's point of view.

Activity

1) View The Monkey Business Illusion.

2) Count the number of passes the students make.

How Did You Do?

How did you do? We don't usually seek what we're not looking for.

Perceptions

In addition, our perceptions are shaped by past experiences and expectations. Take a look at this picture. What do you see? Your past experience with certain breeds of dogs, your expectations about how fat or lean a dog should look, maybe even what you saw on TV last night might all have an influence on how you perceive this picture.

Let's apply this dog example to your college experience. How do your past experiences and expectations influence how you perceive diverse students? Take a minute and reflect on your answer to this question.

Cognitive Biases

Another factor in perceptions, cultural responsiveness, and inclusiveness are what are called "cognitive biases." Cognitive biases and errors are operating at all times. They help us to understand why we perceive things the way we do, and it's helpful to remember they're really just part of our human nature, so we have to be intentional aware to overcome them.

Common Cognitive Biases

Prototypes are a mental image or best example of the ideal person or student. Most likely, your prototype is based on ethnocentrism. But either for non-majority cultures or groups, often prototypes are based on the dominant culture 

Confirmation bias is our tendency to selectively seek information to confirm our prototype, and we have a tendency to minimize information that disconfirms it. So, for example, saying that someone is the exception to the rule or they're not like the typical black person or gay person would be an example of confirmation bias.

A representative heuristic would cause you to feel or appear another student is acceptable because he or she fits your prototype, and you'll subconsciously devalue them when you feel that they don't. Have you ever told someone, you are color blind and that you really didn't see color. That would be an example, really, of all three of these cognitive biases. Essentially what you're saying when you say you're color blind invalidates someone's cultural identity and their entire cultural experience. It's really the equivalent of not seeing them at all.

Deficit Perspective

Take a moment to reflect on what happens for you personally when someone doesn't fit your stereotype. When someone doesn't fit our stereotype we might have a tendency to adopt a deficit perspective or hold negative counterproductive views and lower expectations of people of color or people in a non-dominant group. It's important to recognize that these types of biases are usually out of our conscious awareness, and the only way to remedy them is to first be more aware. That's why it's great that you're viewing this program.

Microaggressions

Microaggressions are typically defined in the context of race as brief and commonplace verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether they're intentional or unintentional. They communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults towards people of color. They are the everyday in the meaning messages most commonly said to people of color, but they can also be directed at other groups. 

An example of a microaggression might be telling an Asian student what good English they speak or asking them where they were born despite the fact that they're right from Texas, right here from Texas. Take a look at this slide show and keep in mind that even unintentional comments may still have a negative impact.

Self-Reflection & Change

Insight is necessary but not sufficient for change. You'll have to start with some active steps, and the best step to begin with is self-reflection.

Ask yourself and perhaps you might even want to journal or discuss with some trusted peers your answers to the following questions: How culturally responsive and inclusive am I? What stereotypes and misperceptions do I hold? What are the benefits of inclusiveness? And what can I personally do to promote inclusiveness? If you have a favorite professor or club advisor that you feel comfortable talking to, you might even want to share your answers with them.

Overcoming Microaggressions

Let's talk about some things you can do to become more culturally responsive and inclusive. First let's take a look at microaggression. In a nutshell you can, one, remember main vigilant of your own biases. Remember, our brains are wired to take these cognitive shortcuts, and it's important to just be mindful of that fact. Two, validate other people's experiential reality. Even when you make unintentional remarks, be aware that it could be equally offensive, even if you didn't mean it. Three, just don't be defensive. This is our human condition. We all have stereotypes, we all have biases, so let that fact go and start working on how you can do better. Four, be open to discussing your own attitudes and biases. And, five, be an ally. Support those groups that are in the non-dominant culture. Get to know more about them, and be supportive.

Additional Suggestions

Some additional things you can work on are the following: Develop the ability to learn from and relate respectfully to people from your own and other cultures. Learn about other people's needs and perspectives, and avoid imposing your own values on other people.

You can take initiative in the following ways. You can attend a workshop or training or take the lead in arranging or scheduling one for your group or for your class. You can go hear different diverse guest speakers or, again, take the initiative to arrange to have them come to your school. You can make a commitment to interact in meaningful ways with students from diverse backgrounds. And you should be aware of microaggressions and other ways that you may be alienating or excluding people who are different from you.

Take Initiative

Cultural responsiveness and inclusiveness require you to identify beliefs, emotions, and/or behaviors that may interfere with interpersonal interactions. I hope you'll take some time to reflect on how you can incorporate what you learned here today to identify strategies to overcome those barriers.

Thank you so much for participating and I commend you for taking the initiative to become more culturally responsive and inclusive.