4.3 Skills for Working Effectively
Residents of the United States possess diverse multifaceted cultural identities. In your professional life or internship experience, you may find yourself in situations where you are a member of a cultural majority and other times where you are a member of a cultural minority. Dr. Pamela Hays (1996, 2008) developed the ADDRESSING framework, a model for recognizing and understanding our individual identities and how they intersect within us (figure 4.5).
| Cultural characteristic | Power | Less power |
|---|---|---|
| Age | Adults | Children, adolescents, elders |
| Disability | Temporarily able-bodied | Persons with disabilities |
| Religion | Christians | Jews, Muslims, other non-Christian |
| Ethnicity | Euro-American | People of Color |
| Social Class | Owning and Middle Class (access to higher ed.) | Poor and Working Class |
| Sexual Orientation | Heterosexuals | Gay men, Lesbians, Bisexuals |
| Indigenous Background | Non-Native | Native |
| National Origin | US-born | Immigrants and Refugees |
| Gender | Male | Female, Transgender, Intersex |
You can use the ADDRESSING framework to reflect on how your cultural membership influences your ability to work with people of similar or dissimilar cultural backgrounds. ADDRESSING stands for the following identifiers that contribute to our complete understanding of our own cultural identity:
- Age
- Developmental disabilities from birth
- Disability acquired through disease or accident
- Religion
- Ethnicity
- Sexual orientation
- Socioeconomic status
- Indigenous group membership
- Nationality
- Gender
Understanding Implicit Bias
Implicit bias is a combination of unconscious beliefs and attitudes that we have toward certain groups of people, which can affect our work, relationships, and care decisions. We can overcome these biases by first examining and locating our blind spots. By questioning these unconscious beliefs, we can then actively work to get rid of those that affect how we interact with others (Berghoef, 2019).
Scientific research on how the brain works has shown that automatic thought processes shape our behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. These automatic processes lead us to form patterns based on small amounts of information. Later these patterns may be expressed as positive or negative attitudes. Although our brains allow us to organize and filter our perceptions, biases may influence our decision making and could create errors in our judgment. These unconsciously held sets of associations about a social group are also known as stereotyping. Implicit biases are learned associations and the result of social conditioning, usually beginning at an early age. Most people are unaware that they hold these biases.
When our behavior is guided by factors found in our implicit bias, it manifests negatively in the interactions we have with people at our schools, places of employment, and in our legal system. Studies on implicit racial bias in educational settings