Positive Multiculturalism as Aspirational Ethical Practice: Concepts and Applications
1. Molly Haas Cowan, PsyD
John A. “Jay” Mills, PhD, ABPP
Jeanne M. Slattery, PhD
Positive Multiculturalism
as Aspirational Ethical
Practice: Concepts and
Applications
3. Our Goals
1. Use Code of Ethics to guide a multicultural practice;
2. Describe a positive multicultural approach, as well
as reasons for paying attention to multicultural
issues;
3. Recognize barriers to developing multicultural
competency; and
4. Identify strategies for teaching students to apply
accepted professional principles in determining
how or when to deliver services to multicultural
populations
4. Guidelines on multicultural education, training,
research, practice, and organizational change
Guideline #1: Psychologists are encouraged to recognize that, as
cultural beings, they may hold attitudes and beliefs that can
detrimentally influence their perceptions of and interactions
with individuals who are ethnically and racially different from
themselves.
Guideline #2: Psychologists are encouraged to recognize the
importance of multicultural sensitivity/responsiveness,
knowledge, and understanding about ethnically and racially
different individuals.
Guideline #3: As educators, psychologists are encouraged to
employ the constructs of multiculturalism and diversity in
psychological education.
Guideline #5: Psychologists strive to apply culturally-appropriate
skills in clinical and other applied psychological practices.
5. Today the nation is no longer divided along [racial]
lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat
it as if it were. –John Roberts (6/2013) www.nydailynews.c
om
6. Perceived racism(Norton & Sommers,
2011)
Blacks continue to indicate drastically poorer outcomes for Black
than White Americans: "from employment to police treatment, loan
rates to education," yet…
9. What do we see as racism? (Sommers &
Norton, 2006)
1. Discomfort/unfamiliarity (e.g., is uncomfortable
around Blacks; doesn't socialize regularly with Blacks)
2. Overt racism (e.g., discourages kids from playing with
Blacks; thinks Blacks are not suited for certain
professions)
3. Denial of problem (e.g., Thinks slavery was so long ago
it is unimportant to talk about; doesn't speak up or act
when someone else is racist)
• People of Color are more likely to identify subtle forms
of bias as racism
• White observers often respond to allegations of subtle
bias with skepticism or questions about ulterior motives
10. Barriers?
When:
• Attitudes are the result of personal experience
• Perceive self as an expert
• Expect a favorable outcome from status quo
• Attitudes are repeatedly expressed
• Stand to win—or lose—something due to the
issue
11. Barriers in classroom?
• Student anger/discomfort (Sweatt, Pedrotti, & Langner,
2013)
• May need to acknowledge/give up privilege
• Instructor background (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Agenda?
• Lack of expertise?
• Lack of instructor knowledge and perceived self-assessed
expertise in content areas (Turner, Burnes, & Taylor, 2013)
• Often weaker student evaluations (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Questions about what should be included
• Turner et al. did not assess religion/spirituality, for example
• Content or theory? (Turner et al., 2013)
12. White racial identity (Slattery & Park, 2011)
1. Contact
2. Disintegration
3. Reintegration
4. Pseudo-independence
5. Independence
14. Problem with self-reports (Banaji &
Greenwald, 2013)
1. White lies
• How are you?
• Do I look fat in these?
2. Gray lies
• Can you spare a dollar?
• Is Ms. X at home?
3. Colorless lies
• How may cigarettes do you smoke a day?
4. Red lies
• I love you.
4. Blue lies
• Did you go to church this week?
www.financefox.ca
16. Shoot or no shoot? (Watt & Sherbourne, in
progress)
17. Reactions to taking Implicit Attitude
Test (Casad, Flores, & Didway, 2012)
Accurate Inaccurate Unsure
After
taking IAT
33% 46% 21%
18. Why? (Casad et al., 2012)
Reasons given for IAT's invalidity
Structure of test is problematic 25%
In-group preference 15%
Explicit and implicit attitude
incongruence
13%
Measures cultural stereotypes 8%
Measures associations, not
prejudice
6%
Measures snap judgments 6%
19. Reactions to taking Implicit Attitude
Test (Casad et al., 2012)
Accurate Inaccurate Unsure
After
taking IAT
33% 46% 21%
After
lecture/
reading
45% 33% 22%
20. What happens when we are
colorblind? (Plaut, Thomas, & Goren, 2009)
Whites' color
blindness
Minorities'
psychological
engagement
Minorities'
perception of
bias
Whites'
multiculturalis
m
-.66 *** .57* -.70 **
Whites' color
blindness
-- -.54* .54*
Minorities'
psychological
engagement
-- -- -.76***
* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001
21. What changes would we like to see in
our students?
Attitude
BehaviorSelf-reflection
Knowledge
25. Ethical acculturation model
(Handelsman, Gottlieb, & Knapp, 2005)
High Low
High Assimilation Integration
Low Marginalization Separation
Personal Ethics
Professional
Ethics
26. Our modification
High Low
High Assimilation Integration
Low Marginalization Separation
Personal Commitment to
Multicultural Competence
Professional
Commitment
27. How do we help students develop
their multicultural competence?
• A single multicultural course (90%, Hill &
Strozer, 1992)
• Mainstream across the curriculum
• Both a single course and mainstreaming
28. Changes reported by students (Sammons
& Speight, 2008)
%
Increased knowledge 69
Increased self-awareness 66
Attitudinal change (both
positive and negative)
33
Behavioral change 24
29. What do students attribute change to?
(Sammons & Speight, 2008)
%
Interactive activities 34
Didactic activities 32
Course as a whole 15
Instructor influence 11
Reflective activities 8
31. Recommendations
• In-class discussion, with films and lectures less
frequently identified (Pedrotti, 2013; Sammons &
Speight, 2008; Yi & Lee, 2013)
• Peer teaching may put face to issues (Sweatt et al.,
2013)
• Identifying the benefits for all members in, for
example, identifying oppression (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Consider multiculturalism in terms of both minority
and majority group membership (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Help students develop a model for working through
ethical decision making, using openness, tolerating
ambiguity, holding positions tentatively, and
becoming self-aware (Tjelveit, 2006)
32. Recommendations from our
experience
• Start where they are
• Foster sensitivity to signs of own biases
• Encourage empathy-inducing activities
• Exploration of aesthetic traditions from other
countries
• Direct engagement in perspective-broadening
activities
• Contact with situations that cause cognitive
dissonance
• Perform psychosocial histories of clients (seeing
beyond symptoms)
33. Andrea Yates
Resnick: And so you thought that your children,
all five of your children, somehow because of
what you saw as your defective mothering,
were not on the path of righteousness and were
stumbling. [Hmm] And did you feel then that it
was good for them or bad for them, if you in fact
threw them into the sea—or in a bathtub—in a
very real sense? What were you trying to
accomplish then when you did take your
children’s lives?
Yates: Maybe in their innocent years … God
would take them up.
Resnick: It would be their innocent years and
God would take them up? Is that what you
said?
Yates: Be with him. Uh huh.
Resnick: God would take them up to be with Him
in heaven? Is that what you mean? [Uh huh.] All
right. And if you had not taken their lives, what
did you think would happen to them?
Yates: Guess they would have continued
stumbling.
Resnick: And where would they end up?
www.nytimes.com
36. References
American Psychological Association. (2002). Guidelines on multicultural education, training,
research, practice, and organizational change for psychologists. Retrieved from
http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/multicultural-guidelines.aspx
Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., Pintrich, P. R.,
Raths, J., & Wittrock. M. C (2000). Taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing, A revision
of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2013). Blindspot: Hidden biases of good people. New York, NY:
Delacorte.
Casad, B. J., Flores, A. J., & Didway, J. D. (2012). Using the Implicit Attitude Test as an
unconsciousness raising tool in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 40, 118-123.
Handelsman, M. M., Gottlieb, M. C., & Knapp, S. (2005). Training ethical psychologists: An
acculturation model. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 36, 59–65.
Lee, M. R., & Yi., S. (2013, August). Qualitative reports of multicultural learning in psychology
students. Poster presented at the meetings of the American Psychological Association,
Honolulu, HI
Norton, M. I, & Sommers, S. R. (2011). Whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are
losing. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(3), 215–218.
Plaut, V. C., Thomas, K. M., & Goren, M. J. (2009). Is multiculturalism or color blindness better
for minorities? Psychological Science, 20(4), 444-446.
Pedrotti, J. T. (2013, August). I can do it! Perceptions of cultural self-efficacy in a multicultural
psychology class. Poster presented at the meetings of the American Psychological
Association, Honolulu, HI.
37. References (cont.)
Prochaska, J. O. (1999). How do people change, and how can we change to help many more
people? In M. A. Hubble, B. L. Duncan, & S. D. Miller (Eds.). The heart and soul of change:
What works in therapy (pp. 227–255). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Sammons, C.C., & Speight, A. L. (2008). A qualitative investigation of graduate-student changes
associated with multicultural counseling courses. Counseling Psychologist, 36, 814-838.
Slattery, J. M., & Park, C. L. (2011). Empathic counseling: Meaning, context, ethics, and skill.
Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2006). Lay theories about white racists: what constitutes
racism (and what doesn't). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 117-138.
Sweatt, L., Pedrotti, J. T., & Langner, C. (2013, August). Teaching about multiculturalism: Views
from the front of the classroom. Poster presented at the meetings of the American
Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI
Tjeltveit, A. C. (2006). To what ends? Psychotherapy goals and outcomes, the good life, and the
principle of beneficence. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 43, 186-200.
doi:10.1037/0033-3204.43.2.186
Turner, S. M., Burnes, T. R., & Taylor, S. (2013, August). Life experience or clinical expertise:
Exploring instructor content knowledge in cross-cultural courses. Poster presented at the
meetings of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI
Watt, J., & Sherburne, C. L. (2011). Implicit attitudes as viewed through a shoot-no shoot
Notes de l'éditeur
American Psychological Association. (2002). Guidelines on multicultural education, training, research, practice, and organizational change for psychologists. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/multicultural-guidelines.aspx
Why is it difficult to see the role of race and culture? What barriers are there?Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.– United States Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala), July 13, 2009 (cited in Norton & Sommers, 2011)
Norton, M. I, & Sommers, S. R. (2011). Whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are losing. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(3), 215–218.we asked a large national sample of Black and White Americans (N +417; Mage = 50.3, SD 1/4 13.6; 57% Female; 209 White, 208 Black) to use a 10-point scale (1 =not at all; 10=very much) to indicate the extent to which they felt both Blacks and Whites were the target of discrimination in each decade from the 1950s to the 2000s.1Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2006). Lay theories about white racists:what constitutes racism (and what doesn't). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 117-138.
Norton, M. I, & Sommers, S. R. (2011). Whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are losing. Perspectives on Psychological Science6(3), 215–218."Perhaps the most problematic implication of these studies for intergroup relations is that those people who are most likely to think racist thoughts or commit racist acts are also the people least likely to see these attitudes and actions as racist…Those people who behave in racists way do not consider those acts tobe biased, then attempts at sensitivity training or other prejudice reductionefforts become more difficult. How can individuals learn to avoiddiscrimination if they are unable or unwilling to recognize it in their ownbehavior? How can two people-- or groups of people-- discuss andresolve accusations of racisms if they have drastically different ideas ofwhat racism is?" p. 134
Identify situation and assimilate to worldview—unless forced to accommodate.
Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2006). Lay theories about white racists:what constitutes racism (and what doesn't). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 117-138.
Slattery, J. M., & Park, C. L. (2011). Empathic counseling: Meaning, context, ethics, and skill. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
During the contact phase, Euro Americans are unaware that race has an impact; when they do see the impact of race, they only see it superficially.Euro Americans in disintegration, like People of Color in dissonance, begin to discover that life is unfair, but are unable to make sense of apparently incompatible ideals (e.g., evidence of discrimination with ideals of fairness, honesty, and justice).During reintegration, Euro Americans have resolved this struggle, at least for a while, idealizing their own group while denigrating others. Often this requires selectively perceiving or distorting information (e.g., concluding “that is just the way life is”). These explanations and distortions help resolve the anxiety associated with recognizing injustice.Euro Americans begin to see both Euro Americans and People of Color as varying in “goodness” during pseudo-independence, although they fail to recognize either the privileged positions they hold or the oppressive factors that impact People of Color. They are unable to recognize that Euro Americans have some responsibility for race-related problems and their solution. Positive evaluations depend on a single (Euro American) standard of merit rather than a multiplicity of values.During independence, Euro Americans are increasingly able to recognize racism, think flexibly about their own and other races, and see other people subjectively and as varying rather than as objects in dichotomous categories. They recognize both oppression and privilege and, although they may not become activists, avoid oppressive acts.
White lies—protect othersGray lies—protect self (to a greater degree than others)Colorless lies—May be unaware of these lies (e.g, that's why we ask people to monitor their pain)Red lies—Promote survival (false claims of wealth or flattery can also do this)Blue lies—as I think it should be (I didn't go to church, but I usually do or I meant to or I know I should)Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2013). Blindspot: Hidden biases of good people. New York, NY: Delacorte.
Watt, J., & Sherburne, C. L. (2011). Implicit attitudes as viewed through a shoot-no shoot simulation. (Unpublished manuscript).
Casad, B. J., Flores, A. J., & Didway, J. D. (2012). Using the Implicit Attitude Test as an unconsciousness raising tool in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 40, 118-123.
Casad, B. J., Flores, A. J., & Didway, J. D. (2012). Using the Implicit Attitude Test as an unconsciousness raising tool in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 40, 118-123.Fitting it to worldview and assimilating rather than accommodating.This was at beginning, after doing the IAT
Casad, B. J., Flores, A. J., & Didway, J. D. (2012). Using the Implicit Attitude Test as an unconsciousness raising tool in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 40, 118-123.
Plaut, V. C., Thomas, K. M.,& Goren, M. J. (2009). Is multiculturalism or color blindness better for minorities? Psychological Science, 20(4), 444-446. Respondents were from 18 work units in a large U.S. health care organization
But it's probably this intersection that we want—all of these things occurring to a significant degree
Note: Idea taken from Knapp, Younggren, VandeCreek, Harris, & Martin (2013)Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W.,Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E.,Pintrich, P. R., Raths, J., & Wittrock. M. C (2000). Taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing, A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Prochaska, J. O. (1999). How do people change, and how can we change to help many more people? In M. A. Hubble, B. L. Duncan, & S. D.Miller (Eds.). The heart and soul of change: What works in therapy (pp. 227–255). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Modification of Berry's Acculturation Model.Handelsman, M. M., Gottlieb, M. C., & Knapp, S. (2005). Training ethical psychologists: An acculturation model. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 36, 59–65.
Modification of Berry's Acculturation Model.Handelsman, M. M., Gottlieb, M. C., & Knapp, S. (2005). Training ethical psychologists: An acculturation model. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 36, 59–65.
Sammons, C.C., & Speight, A. L. (2008). A qualitative investigation of graduate-student changes associated with multicultural counseling courses. Counseling Psychologist, 36, 814-838.Respondents from multiple degrees and programs, solicited (directly or indirectly) from 16 listservs
Sammons, C.C., & Speight, A. L. (2008). A qualitative investigation of graduate-student changes associated with multicultural counseling courses. Counseling Psychologist, 36, 814-838.Obviously, they might not recognize where these changes come from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vAbpJW_xEcStreaming film available at www.diversitytrainingfilms.com/. The Color of Fear, Edited by Richard Bock, The Color of Fear is a powerful movie examining closely the issue of racism. Considered by many to be the best film of its kind, exploring the conscious and unconscious behavior of racism. It has been seen by millions of people around the world and was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. For more info-Stirfryseminars.com
Most of these reports are based on student self-reports. Are they accurate?
Some other recommendations that need to be fleshed out.What things do you do that are useful?
Andrea Yates Confession. (2001, July 14). Clip 8. Houston Chronicle.Retrieved from http://media.swagit.com/s/chron/Houston_Chronicle/01062005-10.high.mov.html
Fadiman, A. (1998). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
The police responded to Gates's house after neighbor Lucia Whalen reported spotting 'two black males with backpacks' trying to gain entry to the home (Gates, returning home from a trip overseas, and his driver were contending with a stuck front door). The Cambridge Police Department reports, authored by Sergeant James Crowley and Officer James Figueroa, quote an incensed Gates yelling, 'This is what happens to black men in America!,' and, when asked by Crowley to speak with him outside the residence, Gates replied, 'ya, I'll speak with your mama outside.' A disorderly conduct rap was filed against Gates, but quickly dropped by prosecutors.Gates has hosted several PBS television miniseries, including the history and travel program Wonders of the African World and the biographical African American Lives and Faces of America., Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research