Constructs
“A statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority”
What is a microaggression?
What does the acronym LIEM mean?
People with Low-Income and Economic Marginalization (avoid using poor people, low-class people)
“A preconceived opinion regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group, that is not based on reason or actual experience”
What is prejudice?
"Adherence to common beliefs, behaviors, and practices associated with a particular faith tradition and community, which provides guidance and oversight."
What is religion?
"An environment that offers affirmation, celebration, and appreciation of different approaches, styles, perspectives, and experiences, thus allowing all individuals to bring in their whole selves (and all their identities) and to demonstrate their strengths and capacity."
What is inclusion?
the ability to understand, appreciate and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one's own (APA)
What is cultural competence?
What is the difference between equity and equality? Provide an example.
Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities.
Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.
Example: access - the elimination of discrimination and other barriers that contribute to inequitable opportunities to join and be a part of workgroup, organization, or community (APA, 2021b)
What is the difference between race and ethnicity?
Race is “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits,” most commonly skin color, and ascribing social meaning to those groups.
Ethnicity describes the culture of people in a given geographic region, including their language, heritage, religion, and customs.
Psychology, the study of the psyche or human spirit, has historical roots in philosophy and religion. True or false?
True
What is the difference between covert and overt racism? Do you have an example?
Overt racism is based on evidence, data, patterns, and/or history. (socially unacceptable)
Covert racism is subtle and unspoken—and often more difficult to recognize and grapple with than overt racism (socially acceptable)
Name four different kinds of privileges someone can possess.
Any four of the following: racial/ethnic (White), religious (Christian), gender identity (male), sexual orientation (heterosexual), SES (rich), ability (able-bodied), age (young), etc.
Psychology students are powerless in making a difference in people of lower SES.
False - What can we do?
These include: a) developing a professional identity that includes social class awareness
b) engaging relationship skills, including affective expression and conflict management, with clients from LIEM backgrounds
c) increasing and maintaining knowledge of social and economic issues experienced by clients from LIEM backgrounds
d) measuring social class in research
e) adapting evidence-based practices
f) incorporating practical experiences in training settings
g) administering and advocating at the systems level
(Stabb & Reimers, 2013).
What does BIPOC stand for?
Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
Little research has demonstrated the efficacy of incorporating spiritual and religious beliefs in psychotherapy. True or false?
False
Intergenerational trauma can be passed biologically. True or false?
The transmission of trauma or its legacy, in the form of a psychological consequence of an injury or attack, poverty, and so forth, from the generation experiencing the trauma to subsequent generations. The transference of this effect is believed to be epigenetic—that is, the transmission affects the chemical marker for a gene rather than the gene itself. The trauma experienced by the older generation is translated into a genetic adaptation that can be passed on to successive generations.
In 2019, what percentage of the psychology workforce identified as being non-White (i.e. - Hispanic, Black, or Asian)? [A: 6%, B: 14%, C: 21%, D: 32%]
B. 14%
What is “The American Dream?” Is it helpful? Could it be harmful?
Idealization bias: the idealization of individuals who are poor (Liu et al., 2007) as hard-working underdogs pursuing the American dream. Although this stereotype is positive, it can also paint students from LIEM backgrounds in a false light, which may undermine their needs.
In the 1970s, psychiatrists added the word “aggressive” to the definition of schizophrenia, and marketed pharmaceuticals directly at Black patients who they felt were more “out of control.”
What is systemic racism?
"The obsessional fear of thinking or behaving immorally or against one's religious belief."
What is scrupulosity?
Structural, Institutional, Interpersonal, Internalized are all types of what?
Racism
When getting to know your new client and discussing identity with them, the client defines themselves as a female, bisexual, Asian-American, Buddhist lawyer. They tell you that these multiple identities and social categorizations create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage that affect them. This is an example of what construct?
Intersectionality
What are some ways psychologists hold biases toward individuals who are from LIEM backgrounds?
less introspective (Gould, 1967)
“lower estimated intelligence” (Brill & Storrow, 1960, p. 343)
unexamined classist assumptions, including: “they don’t come in”, “they’re so disorganized”, and, “they don’t care.”
You are a white male therapist. Your new African American female patient walks into the room and appears very uncomfortable. After a few minutes she interrupts you to tell you that she’d rather see a female therapist, preferably from the same background as her because there is no way you could understand her struggles with racism. How do you discuss this in a sensitive way that invites the topic of racial/gender identity into the room?
Validate, be curious, discuss your role as a clinician, invite dialogue through the lens of social justice and advocacy, validate/address the societal, historical, and political issues that have oppressed African American female populations. Do not try to fix the way she feels, talk about other patients with similar issues, or say “I understand,” just be open to hearing her perspective and validating the unfair way our society is.
“Katina” presented to psychotherapy with depression. She identified as a 42‐year‐old African American, cisgender woman, and her most salient identity was her Christian faith. Picking up on this, her therapist explored Katina’s religious history and the role that religion/spirituality played in her life. They discussed ways she desired to incorporate this into treatment. Katina reported growing up in a strict religious family, where she felt she could never be good enough. She recounted episodes of physical and emotional abuse by her father throughout childhood, and the untimely death of her mother from cancer when she was a teenager. Katina identified her Christian faith as a source of coping and hope in the midst of this loss, but as psychotherapy progressed, she also became more aware of her anger toward God because she believed that God took her mother away or (at best) allowed bad things to happen. How would you incorporate faith in Katina’s treatment?
Katina identified her most problematic core beliefs as (a) I am worthless and no one can ever love and accept me as I am, and (b) bad things keep happening to me and God does not stop them, so I cannot fully trust him. As Katina and her therapist modified these negative core beliefs in the context of her faith, she found comfort in meditating on Scripture passages about God’s presence and unconditional love. Katina identified that listening to Christian music, journaling, taking reflective prayer walks, and attending a small group at her church were all ways she could incorporate daily spiritual practices, rather than being controlled by negative self‐talk.
Jennifer posts a black box on her Instagram page in support of the BLM movement. At school, a classmate shares her lived experience of feeling hypervisible in her doctoral program. A peer responds, “this is too political, and not everything is about race.” Jennifer remained silent. Jennifer’s response is an example of?
performative allyship