{"id":31762,"date":"2023-03-10T14:10:54","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T22:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31762"},"modified":"2023-03-10T14:10:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T22:10:54","slug":"tour-guide-chad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/tour-guide-chad\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour Guide Chad"},"content":{"rendered":"

What better way to spend Spring Break than on a college tour. My oldest daughter wanted to visit the University of Oklahoma (OU) and I was all for it, after all these are my people. This is where I grew up and where my family lives. I affectionately refer to this as \u201cthe motherland.\u201d The visit got even better when the college student leading our tour introduced himself as, \u201cChad.\u201d My daughter looked at me and said, \u201cDon\u2019t be weird.\u201d That was a tall order now, but I reminded myself that I was there for her, even as I laughed at every corny joke. He represents us \u201cChads\u201d very well, I thought.\u00a0 <\/span>After the tour, I was ready to register for classes. I did my best to contain my excitement as my daughter processed her thoughts about the college visit. \u201cI think I want to visit another school, just to make sure,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s wise,\u201d I told her, but how could it get any better? It checked all my unconscious biases.<\/p>\n

While I thought the affinity I felt was due to being a fan of the school, I now see the experience tied to my unconscious connections to the school, particularly the bias I carry. That is the observation offered in Sway: Unraveling Unconscious Bias<\/i>. The author, Pragya Agarwal, argues that, \u201cEach of us form and carry unconscious biases of some sort. It\u2019s not only the behavior of bigoted, racist or sexist people but of everyone, including you and me\u201d[1]. She goes on to argue in a comprehensive, compelling and far-reaching way that these biases are used to judge, discriminate, and stereotype and, further, are supported, reinforced and imbedded in our social systems [2]. In Sway<\/i>, Agarwal traces the biological and social reasons why we are biases, as well as the ways we can unlearn our biases by slowing down and \u201cde-automize\u201d our responses to accurately unlearn and encounter the people around us [3].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Implicit Egotism Theory<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the unconscious or implicit biases that Agarwal unpacks is the \u201cimplicit egotism theory.\u201d This theory states that we are unconsciously biased toward things that we associate about ourselves [4]. This explains why it was not difficult to convince me to like the University of Oklahoma, particularity with funny, Tour Guide Chad leading showed us around campus. He was literally my kind of person. Tour Guide Chad also expressed this when he recounted how he has four job offers already because, \u201cpeople like to hire students from Oklahoma.\u201d What he is expressing is that the employers that made him offers also see him as their kind of person because of the association with OU.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Baked In But Not Permeant\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Agarwal points out that these types of biases may arise from an evolutionary need to recognize friend or enemy [5]. These cognitive \u201cshortcuts\u201d help us make decisions quickly and know if we are safe [6]. While these behaviors can be helpful, they can also lead to harmful stereotypes that can be unlearned [7]. The challenge is to unlearn, of course, as Agarwal observes, \u201cwhen our own beliefs contradict those around us, this becomes a challenge because humans generally detest the notion of \u2018standing alone\u2019, and people can spend too much time copying each other and lose the ability to make their own decisions\u201d [8]. In other words, it would have been difficult to be critical of Tour Guide Chad while on the tour with our new friends who seemed to be excited about the school. It is only when we are removed from the group that we feel free to express a divergent opinion.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n

That is why Agarwal wrote this book – to name the ways we congregate in life without critical thought to the reasons we think and believe the way we do. Considering the biases I have for a university are an entertaining way to get at a deeper truth, and it is the one that Agarwal is inviting all of us to see, that our biases do not necessarily represent the people and situations in front of us. Our biases can be harmful to us and to others if they are left unexamined. While I enjoyed touring OU, I hope my daughter is able to think deeply and unbiased about this important decision in her life. Although, Tour Guide Chad did a great job convincing her that OU would be a fun place.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pragya Agarwal, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias<\/i> (London: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020), 22.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Ibid.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Ibid., 411.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Ibid., 59.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Ibid., 64.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Ibid.<\/li>\n
  7. Ibid., 65.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Ibid., 57.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What better way to spend Spring Break than on a college tour. My oldest daughter wanted to visit the University of Oklahoma (OU) and I was all for it, after all these are my people. This is where I grew up and where my family lives. I affectionately refer to this as \u201cthe motherland.\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2689],"class_list":["post-31762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agarwal-dlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31763,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31762\/revisions\/31763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}