By Adrian Furnham
Most would agree that saying something deliberately calculated to hurt another individual is, at best, small-minded. Nevertheless, even the saintliest of us have our own complex internal webs of assumptions and empathetic lapses that may occasionally allow us unconsciously to enunciate some ill-thought-out assertion or comment. What’s to be done?
Politeness at work
Politeness begets politeness, civility begets civility, generosity begets generosity – at all levels. People in service industries know they are in the theatre business. There is clearly a backstage and a front stage. Service is emotional labour. You have to portray a sunny disposition, a straight back, a genuine caring attitude – whatever you are actually feeling. You have to be even-handed and courteous even to the most odious, passive-aggressive customer.
Going off stage provides an opportunity to let off steam, kick off your shoes, even scream at the monstrous unfairness of everything. There is, for some, a sort of restorative justice in having a good rave about the unspeakable customer on Table 9 or in seat 36B. It can provide a sense of camaraderie with other staff. It helps draw the line between “us” and “them”.
But does all this spleen-venting help? It could spill over to peers, managers, even the business owner. It can lead to generalized bitchiness, legitimized “nyet” attitudes and passive-aggressive hostility. You know an organization is doomed if you see service staff receiving an unhelpful and humiliating “bollocking” by senior managers in front of customers. Indeed, that is often the cause of the problem in the first place. You serve as you are managed.
Politeness is not a trait or an ability. It is a state of mind.
Some organizations are deeply conscientious about modelling good behaviour. Schools are, or should be. Teachers might call each other by their formal names: “Excuse me, Mr Gradgrind,” “Yes, Miss McChokemchild.” They speak politely front- and backstage. They show, in short, respect – that which they want, and demand, those in their care to show. They openly volunteer for tedious tasks; they behave honestly and with integrity. They lavishly praise good behaviour. They bring out the sun.
Is politeness an old fashioned word for respect, which we hear so much on the lips of those who want it, but do not show it? Many confuse “service” with being servile and many seem to confuse politeness with passivity or lack of assertiveness.
Polite people are agreeable. But politeness is not a trait or an ability. It is a state of mind. It is easy and important to learn. Children in all societies are drilled in polite etiquette that is functionally designed to make all forms of social intercourse work more effectively.
You can legislate for politeness, but it is far more important to model it, particularly in the service industries. Good service managers tend to have good service staff, which leads happy customers to pitch up for more.
Unintended rudeness: The Psychology of Microaggressions
Can you be impolite, rude, or even aggressive without meaning to be so? Apparently, yes, you can.
Many years ago, Sue et al. (2007) defined microaggression as brief and commonplace words or behaviour, intentional or not, that communicate hostility, insults, “put downs” or otherwise negative racial slights towards people of colour. These behaviours can be unconscious and manifest themselves in subtle snubs, dismissive looks, and different tones of voice used in communication.
In the business world, this can translate to people of colour being overlooked, undervalued, and / or underrepresented in positions. Since its publication, there has been a great deal of interest in and debate on this concept.
From the PowerToFly website on Microaggressions, consider these five examples with explanations:
- “You’re so well-spoken.” Whether intentionally or subconsciously, this comment implies that you expected the person to speak unprofessionally, to speak with a strong accent, or to sound as if they had less education. It’s usually leveled at people of color by white people who’ve made a racist or ethnically discriminatory assumption about their immigrant or socioeconomic status or their level of education
- “You’re so brave.” This commentary is patronizing, meaning it appears kind but is actually condescending. People with disabilities do not want your pity. Nobody is “brave” for existing or participating in completely normal and healthy activities such as being in public, wearing a bathing suit at the beach, or going through daily life with a positive attitude. Nobody wants to be seen as an object for your inspiration
- “You’re so exotic.” This is a common objectification aimed at people of color. It can carry sexualized undertones, which is additionally inappropriate at work. Food-related descriptors are sometimes used in similar comments, like calling someone “spicy,” “chocolate,” or “caramel.” Othering someone for their cultural dress or non-European features categorizes that person as being outside the norm and suggests they exist for your visual consumption.
- “Nice [shoes/hair/dress].” It’s okay to compliment someone’s appearance, but when it’s the only compliment that women get at work, it’s a microaggression. Chances are you aren’t complimenting your male staffers on their appearances at the same frequency or in the same manner. Let’s stop reinforcing values through looks. How about complimenting her work, like how she handled the last big project?
- “Your English is so good!” This tells the person they look too “ethnic” to be a native English speaker. Remember that both the British and U.S. governments have forced many regions of the world to speak English from birth instead of their native languages. Also remember that English is neither an official nor native language to the U.S.
What do you think? Does this make your blood boil, or have they got a point?
Sue et al. (2007) argued that almost all racial interactions contain microaggressions and often the perpetrator is unaware of their behaviour and the casual discrimination they may be conducting. Microaggressions here are theorized to be a more covert form of racism now that overt racism within society is no longer accepted.
It has been possible to categorize microaggressions into three forms: Microassault, Microinsults, and Microinvalidation.
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Microassault |
Intentional verbal or non-verbal attacks intending to cause harm for people of colour. |
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Microinsults |
Verbal and non-verbal communication that is often unconscious, but still causes harm for people of colour through neglect and a lack of attention, priority, or ignorance. |
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Microinvalidation |
Behaviour, verbal or non-verbal, downplaying racial experiences of people of colour. |
Microassault is the closest microaggression to overt racist behaviour. Microassaults are explicit verbal or non-verbal attacks intended to hurt the person of colour. This can be through name-calling or using racial names such as “oriental”, discouraging polycultural integration. While microassaults are deliberate, they tend to be expressed in private situations that allow anonymity or at least a lack of accountability.
Microinsults are simply communications and verbal, spoken behaviour that are rude, insensitive, and demean an individual’s racial identity and background. These are thought to be often unconscious and unknown to the perpetrator, but represent a potentially harmful message to a person of colour. An example is a white person asking a person of colour, “How did you get your job?” which could supposedly undermine a person of colour’s credibility and competence for a position. Another example might be a white person asking a person of colour, “But where are you actually from?” when they respond that they grew up in a place in the current country. This may supposedly undermine their experiences and sense of belonging within the current country, even if they have grown up there.
Context is obviously important and the past experiences, character, and tone of voice of the person saying these things naturally affects their meaning and interpretation, too. Microinsults can also be behavioural, with more attention or effort being given towards students, clients, or customers who are also white than those who are people of colour.
Context is obviously important and the past experiences, character, and tone of voice of the person saying these things naturally affects their meaning and interpretation
Microinvalidations are behaviours and communications that exclude, downplay, or neglect the experiences, and specifically racial experiences, of people of colour. Colour-blindness is an ideology that can cause microinvalidations. Saying, “I don’t see colour,” or, “Race is not important to me,” “We are all human,” neglects the differences in experiences and discrimination that people of colour may feel and experience from other white people who do in fact see colour. Microinvalidations can also be used by white people as a way of invalidating a person of colour’s negative experiences to microinsults and discrimination as customers, clients, or students. Treating white people preferentially better and then telling people of colour that they are being petty or overreacting are more examples of microinvalidation.
Microinvalidations are essentially characterized by communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person of colour. When Asian Americans (born and raised in the US) are complimented for speaking good English or repeatedly asked where they were born, the effect is often to negate their American heritage and to convey that they are perpetual foreigners.
The Targets of Microaggressions
Currently, microaggression, as a concept, has become more mainstream. It is now not uncommon for students and employees to be trained in microaggressions and how to acknowledge their own implicit biases and not translate them into observable behaviour.
It seems that there are many targets of microaggressions often based on a person’s age, disability, gender, mental illness, or sexuality. There has been a great deal of interest in who the main perpetrators of these microaggressions are and whether they are always conscious and deliberate. Also, there is a great deal of interest in the long- and short-term effects of the microaggressions on the targets and what organizations and societies are attempting to do to reduce and prevent them.
Controversies
More recently, however, microaggressions and the assumptions behind them have been criticized, at least from a research perspective. Lilienfeld (2017) argued that while the huge popularity and mainstream use of the term “microaggression” has definitely led to an increase in exposure, acknowledgement, and understanding of racial experiences of people of colour, research into the area of microaggressions has not been as successful. He argued that microaggressions and the research around them make the following assumptions, namely that microaggressions are clear, always negative, reflect aggressive motivations, can be validly assessed based on human experiences, and are harmful to people of colour. The assumptions have been that:
- Microaggressions are operationalized with sufficient clarity and consensus to afford rigorous scientific investigation.
- Microaggressions are interpreted negatively by most or all minority group members.
- Microaggressions reflect implicitly prejudicial and implicitly aggressive motives.
- Microaggressions can be validly assessed using only respondents’ subjective reports.
- Microaggressions exert an adverse impact on recipients’ mental health.
Central to their scientific critique of microaggression research is that the concept is imprecise and too vague – what is and is not a microaggression is inherently open to interpretation by different individuals in the same context. For good research to be done, we need clear operational definitions. In some cases, something could be defined as a microaggression even if it has no aggression or malice behind it at all. Perhaps the perpetrator is simply ignorant as to how their particular behaviour could affect others. Understandably, context is crucial, but the question remains whether microaggression is a misnomer for behaviour that is not aggressive.
It is also worth noting that microaggressions have faced backlash from predominantly conservative writers and cultural critics, arguing that microaggressions, as well as related concepts such as trigger warnings and safe spaces, are in fact limiting free speech, fostering a culture of victimhood and potentially inhibiting the development of individuals to be resilient to real-world issues. This criticism, however, especially in terms of relating racial experiences to non-racial ones, in itself could be deemed a microinvalidation according to Sue et al. (2007)’s framework.
Unconscious Bias
While Freudians distinguish between conscious, pre-conscious, and unconscious thinking, social and cognitive psychologists mainly talk about just the first and last of these. The Freudians argue that it is very difficult to access the unconscious, which for many is the central goal of all therapy. Therapy brings (deeply) unconscious ideas into pre-consciousness, where they can be accessed and addressed. In this sense, it would be very difficult to understand and change unconscious bias.
Unconscious bias, also known as implicit bias, has been defined as a learned assumption, belief, or attitude that exists in the subconscious. People do not know that they are biased in so many of their decisions. Social psychologists stress a dual process of thinking: conscious, propositional thinking that is based on logic and analysis; unconscious, associative thinking based on relationships between our experience and observation. They argue that we develop a large and complex network of relationships between concepts such that we see patterns in human behaviour. This allows us to navigate the world more successfully. In other words, we develop a set of assumptions (many of them biased) over time to be more efficient processors of information in our environment.
The argument is well known: in order to be efficient thinkers, a large proportion of thinking becomes unconscious, and biases occur when we make dysfunctional decisions based on these inaccurate connections. These decisions are considered particularly problematic when they take the form of unconscious stereotyping. They are a set of unintentional biases – you are unaware of your attitudes and behaviours resulting from them. In this sense, many people (unfairly and even unintentionally) discriminate against and / or in favour of others (based on age, sex, race, culture, etc.) in their everyday life. It is this issue that is addressed: how to confront and stop unconscious bias. The idea of unconscious bias became highly popular and politicized around the turn of the millennium. It was seen to be the pursuit of unfair discrimination, favouritism, and prejudice. Hence it needed to be addressed in the cause of a fairer and more just society. Many organizations spent large sums of money attempting to assess and educate their staff. This has led to something of a backlash, asking whether there is evidence that this training works. Indeed, it has been suggested that training in unconscious bias leads to very unfavourable outcomes, more problematic than the issues they are attempting to solve.
So….
Do we leak our real beliefs and feelings in our everyday, casual conversations by the words we choose and the statements we make? Probably. Should we strive to be less hurtful to others in our everyday language? Of course.
About the Author
Adrian Furnham is Professor in the Department of Leadership and Organisational Behaviour at the Norwegian Business School, which is a very safe organisational environment.
