Several years ago, Steve L. Robbins, PhD, coined the term "unintentional intolerance" to define biases of which we're unaware. A social psychologist by training, Dr. Robbins was the main presenter Monday at the Veterinary Diversity Symposium, sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health.
Dr. Evan M. Morse welcomed attendees to the fourth symposium and continued discussion of what he called the paradox of diversity. The daylong learning session offered insights into issues of diversity, inclusion, and cultural competence.
Discussions centered on topics such as culture, stereotyping, cognitive dissonance, understanding power and privilege, and becoming a path maker instead of a path blocker.
"Culture is the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and generate behavior," said Dr. Robbins, who works with organizations such as Boeing, NASA, and Toyota. Research suggests people will fight to the death for their reality—even after they find out they're wrong, he said.
"Micro-inequities are the things we often do that we're unaware of that devalue people," he said, giving an example of a speaker seeing someone checking their Blackberry instead of listening to the presentation. And sometimes a person unintentionally conveys an attitude in the tone in their voice.
Dr. Robbins said we need to care about people because they're human beings. "In the 21st century, we're asking people to do so much with so little—anxiety and stress cause us to pull back to what we know," he said. This applies to diversity in that people tend to be more closed-minded because they revert to what's comfortable for them.
Diversity can be pursued through two approaches, he said. The social justice approach flowed out of the civil rights movement. The solutions applied in this approach included antiracism and antisexism workshops and efforts toward greater equitability and fairness, sensitivity, and awareness. The other approach is the cognitive toolbox, which seeks out diverse experiences and perspectives to solve complex problems through creativity and innovation.
Dr. Robbins said it's also essential to identify what will resonate with the target audience because they may have a different perspective.
When addressing open-mindedness, it's essential to talk about its partner, closed-mindedness, he said. Cognitive dissonance is a motivational theory describing a state of two conflicting views. People do one of two things when confronted with this—fight or flight. Fight involves entertaining an idea; flight involves blocking it, which is closed-minded.
"Seek out different perspectives before arriving at your certainties," Dr. Robbins said. The best way to entertain an idea is to ask "What if?" That leads to open-mindedness, creativity, and more innovation. "In business, it's called scenario-based thinking," he added.
"We live in socially constructed realities," he said. "We have the ability to change the rules."
A live jazz performance with a running commentary by Dr. Morse captured the similarities between jazz music and the nature of diversity and inclusion, which concluded the symposium.
