Today is June 19, and by now you’ve probably received several emails from different offices in Duke celebrating the importance of this day in history: Juneteenth, the day we celebrate the end of American chattel slavery. I hope that we mark this day with a period of introspection to find ways that each of us can further the cause of anti-racism. Recognizing the hour at which I’m sending this email, taking that time on June 20 will be sufficient also. Below I’ve provided a subject to help prompt some introspection.
The month of June is Pride month. Pride is about promoting affirmation and dignity among ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, and our colleagues who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Born out of centuries of hatred, criminalization, and violence directed toward LGBTQ people, Pride is a repudiation of being forced to hide or suffer potentially fatal consequences for being oneself. Pride month epitomizes the prime directive of diversity and inclusion work, which is to facilitate each person’s differences coming together in collective strength. So, happy Pride month, everybody!
On the departmental level, we are reaching the end of our year of Accountability. Of course, this does not mean the end of accountability, just the phasing out of this theme. The Diversity and Inclusion Committee voted for Equity as the theme of the 2020-2021 academic year. The culmination of our year’s work on accountability is a Neurology Department Self-Assessment containing five sub-reports. The first is our census report identifying the various ways we are and are not diverse. The second is a report on gender pay equity among the faculty. Third is an analysis of our grand rounds speakers’ races and genders. Fourth is a review of the residency recruitment process. And fifth is the results of the Diversity and Inclusion survey, which was completed as part of the census. As evidence that old themes never really go away, we will live up to our 2018-2019 theme of Transparency and release the results of all of these self-assessments to the entire department in the coming days.
I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe weekend, and Happy Father’s Day to the fathers out there.
Andrew
Introspection on the Fundamental Attribution Error
One of my favorite concepts from my days as an undergraduate psychology major was the fundamental attribution error. For those of you who haven’t heard of this, the FAE is a cognitive bias that makes us believe good things that happen to ourselves are because we earned them; there is something virtuous in us that allowed us to achieve something. Meanwhile, when good things happen to others, we’re more likely to assume that circumstances in the environment led to this success. When something bad happens to ourselves, we assume that circumstances in the environment were to blame; we don’t often instinctively blame our own character flaws or deficiencies for bad events. But when we see something bad happen to someone else, we assume that they did something to deserve it.
This bias is self-serving. If we see something bad happen to someone else and it’s due to circumstances outside their control, then it’s equally likely that something bad would happen to us that’s outside our control, and that makes us uncomfortable. If something good happens to us and it was due to external circumstances outside our control, we lose out on the positive feelings that achieving success on our own merits provides.
The reality is that both internal and external forces control our lives. It is imperative that we recognize that not everything good that happens to us is entirely of our own making and that not everything good that happens to someone else is due to luck, circumstances or some unfair advantage. It is imperative that we recognize that when bad things happen, we might bear some responsibility while recognizing that bad things happening to others might have been more out of their own control than we realize. Try to keep this in mind when your brain automatically jumps to making these assumptions. Remember, cognitive biases are natural, but acting on them is optional. So the next time your subconscious generates the idea that a Black student only got accepted to Duke because she was Black, tell yourself you’re making the fundamental attribution error and it’s probable you’re greatly underestimating her personal achievements.