Microinequity - Further Research

Further Research

A book on the same subject was written pseudonymously in the late 1970s by Mary Howell, MD, of Harvard Medical School. Under the name of “Margaret Campbell, MD” Dr. Howell wrote “Why Would a ‘Girl’ Want to go into Medicine?”

Wesley Profit, PhD, wrote his Harvard doctoral thesis on the micro inequities of racism. Ellen Spertus, an MIT student at the time, did a small study on, “Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Technical Report 1315, August 1991. This is one of many such studies from various departments at MIT.

Dr. Frances K Conley, then of Stanford Medical School, published “Walking Out on the Boys” in 1998, which deals with her experience as a woman neurosurgeon, and sexism in the medical profession. Stephen Young uses the concept of “micro-advantages,” rather than “micro-affirmations.” He published “Micro-Messaging” in 2006 (McGraw-Hill). Scholarly works include “Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women” by Virginia Valian, MIT Press, 1999, and the article “What Knowers Know Well: Women, Work, and the Academy,” Alison Wylie, University of Washington, 2009.

Recently there has been great deal of work being done by various consultants, experts doing research in the social sciences and in neuro-science, and leaders in the field of diversity. For example, there is an important body of scholarly research on unconscious bias. Research on selective perception has helped to illuminate our understanding of how people see each other.

Our understanding can be improved by understanding the neuro-science of the origins of unconscious bias. The subject of micro inequities becomes more important as we learn that much of our decision making in life is mostly unconscious and not accessible to conscious review.

Various ideas are put forward regularly in an attempt to mitigate unconscious bias:

1. Groups are taught how to recognize, prevent and deal with possible errors made by individuals;
2. "Active bystander" training often includes discussions of the importance of peers and bystanders in affirming equitable environments.
3. Facts are collected, rather than opinions, about judgments that are to be made;
4. Judgments made in the past are reviewed periodically and objectively;
5. Teaching the habits of micro-affirmations may help in preventing micro-inequities from happening in the first place. This is especially important with respect to preventing errors in judgment that can arise from selective perception and other manifestations of unconscious bias.