Image source: Pixabay

Project Drawdown is a non-profit organization that recently published a book titled ‘Drawdown’ (2017) which features a detailed list of solutions to the problem of global warming. They define drawdown as:

 ‘the point in the future when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping catastrophic climate change—as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.’ 

The Project Drawdown list places emphasis on solutions that would be practically feasible today, with existing technology, rather than focusing on solutions that are theoretical or may only be viable in years to come. While their list and justifications are compelling, we were curious how recognizable some of these solutions were by name only – whether the public could determine how effective each solution was at improving the climate change situation. 

Our Survey

In order to gauge the public’s intuitive understanding of many of the solutions that Project Drawdown listed as most effective at combating climate change, we built a survey that asked people to rate how effective they believed that each solution was at reducing atmospheric CO2.

Fig. 1: Asking participants to rate the effectiveness of solutions

The participants were presented with the Drawdown solutions and asked to rate them on the scale shown above (Fig. 1) which ran from 0 to 100, with descriptive levels above the scale for points of reference. 

Results

Our survey was shared through the danariely.com blog, and was completed by 1,890 participants. The participants had an average age of about 50 years old and we observed roughly equal breakdowns for both gender and political party affiliation.

After collecting survey responses, we took the average rating of each response and ranked them in order of descending effectiveness. With these ratings in-hand, we compared our study ranking to the Project Drawdown ranking by looking at the difference between them.

Fig. 2: Overrated and Underrated Project Drawdown Solutions

The solutions that were overrated by study participants appear in the left side of the vertical line through zero in figure 2, while the underrated solutions appear on the right. Those solutions at the top are the most effective drawdown solutions, while those at the bottom are less effective. 

Immediately, we are able to see that ‘Refrigeration’, the most impactful change according to Project Drawdown – is wildly underrated, people had it on average over 50 positions lower than its actual rank. 

Another immediately apparent result is that a large number of the solutions in the bottom left of the chart are focused on energy use and management. 

Fig. 3: Rank differences by Project Drawdown Solution sector

There are a number of sectors which contain a roughly equal amount of overrated and underrated solutions. ‘Buildings and Cities’ and ‘Materials’ saw more of the highly impactful solutions be underrated, while the lower impact solutions were overrated. ‘Land Use’ has a roughly equal distribution and ‘Energy’ appears to be very tightly clustered aside from a few low ranking solutions that were very overrated by participants. The sectors that we observed as either being mostly overrated or underrated were ‘Food’ (consistently underrated) and ‘Transport’ significantly overrated, with ‘Women and Girls’ being moderately underrated as well. 

These mostly uniform over-or-underrated sectors might be somewhat understandable when you consider how the issue of climate change is discussed in popular culture. While there is an increasing focus on how our diets can shape the future of the planet, ‘high tech’ solutions like electronic vehicles appear to get a larger share of attention.

Future Work

Given Project Drawdown has adjusted their list of solutions by specifying ‘Scenario 1’ and ‘Scenario 2’ conditions, wherein the temperature rises by 2 and 1.5 degrees respectively by the year 2100, we would like to revisit the public’s perception of solutions within these frameworks. In addition, a possible avenue of further exploration would be to use the ‘Sector’ groupings for solutions to dig deeper into the trends we observed in figure 3. Ultimately, what may be most interesting and useful is an exploration of how actionable people perceive each solution, or each sector of solution to be. Though there are many solutions to climate change that remain outside of the reach of an average person, a number of the highest impact solutions can be implemented or encouraged by individuals.

The post Perception of Climate Change Solutions appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

Editor: Kahini Shah

In our final Black History Month blog post, the Center for Advanced Hindsight continues its celebration of the important work of Black Psychology and the influential individuals who have contributed to this field. As you may recall, our first post introduced the three schools of Black Psychology: traditional, reform, and radical. In the following two weeks, we examined the lives and works of two psychologists who helped build the field of Black Psychology, Dr. Kobi K. K. Kambon and Dr. William E. Cross.

In this post, we would like to delve into the three different methodologies that have been used by Black Psychologists to de-center the White/Eurocentric monopoly that has characterized the field since its inception: deconstruction, reconstruction, and construction. We’ve hinted at each of these methodologies in our previous blog posts. Each has a corresponding school of Black Psychology, but is also used in varying ways by all Black Psychologists.

The first methodological approach, deconstruction, corresponds most closely with the traditional school of Black Psychology. It identifies and deconstructs the weaknesses and flaws in White psychology, including the racist ways White psychology describes Blackness in deficit terms. A notable example of this approach is Dr. Curtis Bank’s refutation of the supposed preference for White individuals amongst Black individuals, in which he demonstrated that the body of research used to assert White preference in Black individuals was flawed both methodologically and statistically. Specifically, Banks showed in 33 studies that White preference in Black individuals was statistically no different than what would be expected by chance.

Another example is Dr. Robert Williams’ disproof of White-centered intelligence tests. White individuals reliably scored higher in these tests than Black individuals, and this fact was often used in arguments trying to “prove” the genetic inferiority of Black individuals. Williams argued that these intelligence tests were culturally biased towards Whites, and measured culture rather than cognitive ability. He created the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity, an intelligence assessment that used primarily Black cultural experiences instead of White ones. When he tested this assessment, Black participants scored much higher than White participants, demonstrating that content in intelligence tests matters and can lead to culturally-biased, spurious results.

Dr. Robert L. Williams II

The second methodological approach, reconstruction, relates most closely to the reform school of Black Psychology. It endeavors to correct the errors and outright falsehoods promulgated by White psychology when describing Black behaviors and attitudes. It reconstructs the theories of White psychology into culturally-sensitive models of Blackness. As we learned last week, Dr. William E. Cross, Jr.’s work on nigrescence, the process of becoming Black, falls into this methodological framework – it takes a theory developed by White psychology, the idea of a self-concept, and molds it to form a new theory of Black self-concept.Another example of this approach is the work done by Dr. Robert Sellers and his colleagues. They created the Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI), which is an identity model based on the assertion that race is one of several salient social identities for Black individuals. Among other questions, the MMRI asks, “How important is race in the individual’s perception of self?” and “What does it mean to be a member of this racial group?”

Dr. Robert Sellers

The third methodological approach, construction, corresponds most closely with the radical school of Black Psychology. It aims to construct entirely new psychological theories for understanding Blackness, seeing little to no value in White/Eurocentric theories of Black behavior. Our week 2 blog post about Dr. Kobi K. K. Kambon gives a good example of this approach in its discussion of the concept of African Self Extension Orientation – the unconscious but deeply felt experience of Blackness – which is mirrored on the conscious level by African Self Consciousness – an acknowledgment of oneself as African alongside commitment to the liberation, improvement, and respect of other African individuals and the larger African community. These are novel theories of the African self.

Another example of this technique is the concept of an Black/African worldview put forward by Dr. Linda James Myers. She argued that there are two worldviews: an African, “optimal” worldview that is based on the infinite, the Divine, and an internal compass, and a White/Eurocentric worldview, which is largely based on the finite, the materials, and external appearances. In her book Understanding an Afrocentric World View: Introduction to an Optimal Psychology, Myers conceptualized a worldview that is not only for Africans, but for all oppressed people. She noted that, regardless of race, an individual’s perspective is influenced in large part by how they perceive the world. In addition, the world that is perceived by a person is not an external world per se, but one’s projection of reality. Consequently, understanding how the world is perceived is of critical importance, and can ultimately lead to the transcendence of suboptimal worldviews and an increase in individual and social well-being.

Dr. Linda James Myers

As you can see, each of the Black Psychology methodological approaches intersects with and complements the others. These approaches, their corresponding schools, as well as the individuals who created and molded them, form a rich and rigorous scholarship of Black Psychology. This scholarship benefits not only Black individuals, but all people and the fields of psychology in general. We owe a debt to those who decided to pioneer a new psychology after having their voices unheard all those many years ago at the American Psychological Association convention of 1968. We at the Center for Advanced Hindsight salute these brave and insightful individuals.

We hope that you enjoyed our blog posts about Black Psychology and its influential members. We also hope that you learned a thing or two about its history, theories, and insights. Most importantly, we hope you can take something you learned here and apply it in your own life. Thank you so much for reading!

References:

Cokley, K., & Garba, R. (2018). Speaking Truth to Power: How Black/African Psychology Changed the Discipline of Psychology. Journal of Black Psychology, 44(8), 695–721. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798418810592

The post The Diverse Methodologies of Black Psychology appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

Author: Shaye-Ann Hopkins

Editor: Maximiliano Bernal Temores

In this week’s Black History Month blog post, the Center for Advanced Hindsight continues to share the history and contributions of Black psychology. In our first post, we introduced the three schools that make up Black psychology (i.e., traditional, reform, and radical), while last week, we focused on Dr. Kobi K. K. Kambon’s work in the Radical school. We will use this week’s post to highlight the work of William E. Cross, Jr. in the Reform School of Black Psychology.

Reform School proponents strongly critiqued the limits of White psychology while arguing that some of its findings could still apply to the Black mind and experience. They built theories around the Black self-concept using a reconstructionist method, where they corrected the errors around Black attitudes and behavior from the Traditionalist school of thought. Reform school leaders challenged the racism and limitations of White psychology and recognized the existence of a distinct Black psychology. 

A key psychologist that has contributed to the Reform school was William E. Cross, Jr., Ph.D. (1940 – present), one of America’s leading theorists and researchers on Black and racial-ethnic identity development. Cross was born in Evanston, Illinois as one of four children to Bill and Margaret Cross. He completed his psychology degree at the University of Denver in 1963 before attending Roosevelt University for masters-level studies in clinical psychology. He then completed his African-American Studies doctoral degree in 1976 at Princeton University, where he became heavily involved with the Black Consciousness movement of the 1960s and 1970s. 

Cross’ work was further influenced by the death of Martin Luther King in 1968 and the work of W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois famously described Black identity development in America in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) in the following words:

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. (pg.2)

In response to Du Bois’s ideas and the work of that period, Cross began his work on Black racial identity and nigrescence, the process of becoming black. Cross’ work in The Negro-to-Black Conversion Experience (1971) proposed one of the first models of Black racial identity development in psychology. The Nigresence model analyzed the levels of awareness involved in converting from “Negro” to “Black.” It included a five-stage process for Ethnic Identity Development that consists of the following steps: 

1) Pre-Encounter – Low awareness of race and its implications, 

2) Encounter – Exposure to racial oppression, 

3) Immersion/Emersion – “Just discovered Blackness” and abandonment of old self, 

4) Internalization – Acceptance and respect for blackness and other racial/ethnic groups, and 

5) Internalization–Commitment – Comfort in one’s racial/ethnic identity and working to empower one’s community.

Cross’ nigrescence model described Black identity conversion as transcending social class, while he noted that true liberation is partially a rejection of Eurocentric self-conceptualizations and an acceptance of a Black-centered identity formation. 

Cross revised his nigrescence conversion theory in his seminal work Shades of Black (1991). He noted that this book was his attempt to refocus Black psychology away from the prevailing emphasis on self-hatred and the social pathology model. He brought attention to the nuances of self-identity and purported a theory of identity transformation. The latter part of Shades of Black revised Cross’ original Negro-to-Black Conversion Model. One change included a theorized distinction of the Immersion-Emersion stage into two identities: an intense Black involvement/engagement and an anti-White attitude (or White culture rejection). This book helped shift black psychology towards a more normative and positive focus through logical, rational, and empirically substantiated arguments. 

As a result of Cross’ racial identity development theory, various psychologists have designed several standardized scales to quantify his proposed nigrescence and identity development model. For example, the Racial Identity Attitude Scale (RIAS) developed by Parham and Helms (1981) evaluates the types of attitudes in the different phases of Cross’ nigrescence model. Meanwhile, Cross and his research team at Penn State designed, tested, and validated the Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS) in 2002, expanding his nigrescence model. This scale developed due to psychometric limitations and the evolution of Cross’ nigrescence theories. It became an exemplary measure used in Black psychology and beyond, allowing for the measurement and operationalization of an identity concept.

Cross’ contributions have inspired countless research studies on identity development and racial identity over the years, resulting in significant achievements. For instance, the Association of Black Psychologists named Cross a Distinguished Psychologist in 2001 and he received the Social Justice Education Award at the Winter Roundtable, Teachers College in 2009. In the same year, the Annual Conference on Cross-Cultural Issues in Counseling and Education created the William E. Cross, Jr. Lectures Series in his honor. Cross served as a past President-Elect of Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues), and in 2022, he received the APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology.  

William Cross’ work within the Reform school has significantly impacted the field of Black and cultural psychology, building an understanding of the cultural experience and its impact on research. As we think about individual and group identity, insights from Cross’ work can prove meaningful in understanding cross-cultural differences and the different stages of identity development across varying ethnicities and groups.

Be sure to check out next week’s final Black History Month post to see which Black psychologist will be in the spotlight.

References:

Cokley, K., & Garba, R. (2018). Speaking truth to power: How Black/African psychology changed the discipline of psychology. Journal of Black Psychology, 44(8), 695-721.

Cross Jr, W. E. (2001). Encountering nigrescence. Handbook of multicultural counseling, 2, 30-44.

Cross, W. E. (1971). The Negro-to-Black conversion experience. Black World, 20(9), 13-27.

Cross, W. (1991). Shades of Black: The Philadelphia.

The post William Cross’ Reform School of Black Psychology appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

1. The traditionalists, who accepted the general theories of the human mind set forth by White psychology but challenged its racial biases;
2. The reformers, who strongly critiqued the limits of White psychology while arguing that some of its findings could still apply to the Black mind and experience;
3. The radicals, who sought to decentralize whiteness in psychology entirely by conceiving a novel Black psychology founded on African thought and culture.

The traditionalists and reformers are most likely to be cited in modern-day psychological research, at least among the flagship journals in the field. However, the vision of the radicals, as embodied in the transformative work of Dr. Kobi Kambon, presents the most ambitious view of what a truly Black psychology might look like.

Dr. Kobi Kazembe Kalongi Kambon (1943-2018), born Joseph A. Baldwin, was the ninth of ten children, the son of a schoolteacher and a coal miner-turned Baptist minister. The name he chose for himself is derived from the Kikuyu ethnic group of East Africa, and translates as “The Wise and Victorious Warrior of the People” – a legacy his whole life upheld. 

Working as an aide in a state psychiatric hospital in the early 1960s, he became fascinated by psychology and resolved to pursue a career in the field. His education was interrupted by the draft in 1965, where he served two years as a medical specialist in Alaska. The GI BIll allowed him to finish his undergraduate work at DePaul University, where he met Dr. Bobby Wright, a lifelong mentor of his (and a towering figure in Black Psychology in his own right!) In 1975, he completed his PhD in Personality and Social Psychology at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

His work hit the ground running with his 1976 article “Black Psychology and Black Personality: Some Issues for Consideration“. In this landmark work, Kambon argued that the nascent field of Black Psychology needed to decide if it was defined as ‘research conducted by Black psychologists’ or ‘research on Black psychology and personality’.

He championed the latter path himself, believing that Black people around the world possess African Self Extension Orientation (ASEO), or an unconscious but deeply felt experience of Blackness. This trait is mirrored on the conscious level by African Self Consciousness (ASC), which reflects acknowledgment of oneself as African alongside commitment to the liberation, improvement, and respect of other African individuals and the larger African community.

Black individuals who are low in African Self Consciousness may suffer from cultural misorientation, a phenomenon where Eurocentric norms are internalized. These norms are harmful not simply because they are racist, but also because they do not match the cultural background of Black individuals, creating an internal state of conflict.

Dr. Kambon’s work investigated these topics with exacting methodological rigor. He developed and carefully validated scales for these constructs, and empirically investigated the links between them. Overall, the body of research examining his theories has typically found that higher levels of ASC are related to higher well-being, fitting the idea that Black individuals who prioritize their shared cultural roots flourish. 

Beyond his research, Dr. Kambon also achieved remarkable success in building an academic legacy. In 1982, he was both elected as the President of the Association of Black Psychologists and hired as the chair of the Psychology Department at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), currently the highest-ranked HBCU in the United States. He would remain there for thirty years, recruiting fellow professors to craft a truly African-centered department. Under Dr. Kambon’s leadership, FAMU’s faculty included three Presidents of the Association of Black Psychologists, beginning with Dr. Kambon himself. This concentration of scholarship has proved essential in keeping the radical school of Black Psychology alive. As Dr. Kambon wrote in 2011, three years before his retirement:

“I constantly emphasize that we are creating the closest representation to an African-Centered Psychology Department that our people have had.” (p. 23)

Dr. Kambon is far from the only notable voice in radical Black Psychology; Asa Hilliard, Wade Nobles, Na’im Akbar, Linda James Myers, and Cheryl Grills are other scholars in this tradition worth following. Dr. Kambon stands out, however, as one of the most notable practitioners of constructionism—someone who not only sought to tear down the harmful theories of White Psychology, but also establish new ones in their place. His career is a testament to both rigor and creativity, and serves as a shining example of how African-centered scholarship is necessary to understanding the Black experience in America.

Next week, we’ll discuss the work of Dr. William Cross, an important researcher in the Reform school of Black Psychology. Stay tuned!

References

Baldwin, J. A. (aka K. Kambon), (1976). Black Psychology and Black Personality: Some issues for consideration. Black Books Bulletin, 4(3), 6-11.

Cokley, K., & Garba. R. (2018). Speaking Truth to power: How Black/African Psychology Changed the Discipline of Psychology. Journal of Black Psychology, 44, 695 – 721

Kambon K. (2011). African-centered critical thinking: A model for African American mental-intellectual liberation. Unpublished manuscript. Sourced from Jamison, D.F. (2016) – see below.

Karenga, M. (1991). Introduction to Black studies. Los Angeles, CA: University of Sankore Press.

Jamison, D. F. (2016). Kobi K. K. Kambon (Joseph A. Baldwin): Portrait of an African-Centered Psychologist. Journal of Black Studies, 47(6), 592–609. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934716653354

McKenzie, Nichole J. (2012). African/Black psychology: a qualitative investigation of distinguished Black psychologists. Theses and Dissertations, 253. https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/etd/253

Williams, Robert L. (2008). History of the Association of Black Psychologists. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.

The post The Radical Black Psychology of Dr. Kobi K. K. Kambon appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

Author: Shanta Ricks
Editor: Mikalyn Rush

Black History tells us many stories of Black achievements, accomplishments, and contributions; however, some of these stories are untold or go unnoticed. For Black History Month, The Center for Advanced Hindsight would like to use our voice to share a significant piece of Black history that forever changed the way in which psychology works; the creation of Black psychology. Each week we will post mini blogs that each connect to the history of Black psychology and prominent figures within the field. For today’s blog post, let’s start from the beginning of how and why the field of Black Psychology began.

What is Black Psychology? No, it’s not merely Black Psychologists who study within the field of Psychology. It’s actually considered to be a distinct academic discipline! While there are a variety of ways to define the field, the commonalities among them emphasize the study of Black thought and behaviors using Black experiences to generate culturally tailored theories, concepts, and methods.

The need for Black psychology was catalyzed by an event that took place in 1968, where a group of over two hundred Black psychologists met at the American Psychological Association (APA) convention that was held in San Francisco, CA to discuss several concerns they had. Firstly, their aim was to discuss how problematic it was to use Eurocentric perspectives and racially biased curricula to understand Black experiences which approached understanding African Americans through a deficit perspective, presenting Black people as inferior. In other words, much of the conclusions reached in psychological research relied on the perspectives of White people in the U.S., often undergraduate students. People who then differed from this “norm” were seen as deficient. Secondly, the group also discussed the lack of Black people (students and professionals) within psychology and the APA. To make improvements, the Black psychologists expressed a need for the APA to incorporate more Black professionals within the APA and psychology sector as well as to adequately train psychologists on working with minority groups.

The needs of the Black psychologists were left unmet by the APA, so the Black psychologists decided to create their own organization, The Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi). The organization worked to generate greater representation and opportunities for Black professionals as well as to change the way psychological research of African Americans was conducted.

As a result, more Black people were earning degrees in psychology. Yet, Eurocentric perspectives were still being taught to the Black professionals that continued to expose them to the idea that Black people were inferior. This meant that the negative perspectives of Black people continued to be maintained. These issues were brought to greater attention by one of the founders of ABPsi, Joseph White, who’s considered to be the “Godfather of Black Psychology.”

In 1970 Joseph White wrote the first article titled “Toward a Black Psychology” which emphasized the need to have a psychology that studies Black lives in a “non-deficient” and unbiased manner. In his article, he referred to this type of psychology as “Black psychology” thus being the one who coined the term. White along with many other psychologists such as Wade Nobles (who introduced African philosophy to Black psychology) helped to drive the field of Black psychology forward.

Soon enough, the field of Black Psychology was formed in a systematic way to study and properly understand Black experiences. Within the field lies three schools of thought: traditional, reform, and radical. Briefly stated, the traditional school challenges Eurocentric psychology but uses the methodology with minor changes, the reform school essentially recognizes components of Eurocentric psychology that are useful and can be incorporated within Black psychology and the radical school constructs new theories to capture Black experience using African-based culturally tailored theories. Given the difference with each school, different methodology approaches are used. It should be noted that though each school is distinct from each other, there’s typically overlap. Regardless, each school importantly contributes to the field of Black Psychology.

In all, many Black psychologists including Joseph White advocated for the need of Black experiences, thoughts, and behaviors to be studied in a non-deficient manner. Together their efforts along with ABPsi helped to lay the foundation of Black Psychology.

Stay tuned for the upcoming blog posts to learn more about each school of thought within Black psychology and prominent Black scholars who contributed to those schools! Next week, the traditional school will be highlighted.

References:

Cokley, K., & Garba. R. (2018). Speaking Truth to power: How Black/African Psychology Changed the Discipline of Psychology. Journal of Black Psychology, 44, 695 – 721

Jamison, D.F. (2018). Key Concepts, Theories, and Issues in African/Black Psychology: A view From the Bridge. Journal of Black Psychology, 44, 722 – 746.

Retrieved from: https://connect.springerpub.com/highwire_display/entity_view/node/116243/content_details?implicit-login=true

The post The Journey of Black Psychology: Starting from the Beginning appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

Author: Shanta Ricks

Editors: Nina Bartmann and Jan Willem Lindemans

The holiday season is here. And with it, all the added stress and activity brought on by work and family gatherings, gift buying and home decorating. For many people, juggling this increase in personal demands with work can be overwhelming. These five behavioral science hacks can help you maintain a healthy work-life balance throughout the holidays.

Your holiday needs to be “JOLLY”:

• J: Joyful, by jumpstarting your day with joy,
• O: Organized, by organizing tasks by prioritization,
• L: Liable, by holding yourself liable with SMART goals,
• L: Light, by learning to take life breaks,
• Y: Yummy, by enjoying food with families and friends

Jumpstart the day with joy

Begin each day with one small activity that brings you joy to ease into the workday with a clear mind. This can take on many forms like showing gratitude, listening to your favorite song, or going for a brisk walk. It will not only put you in a good mood, but it also makes you more productive at work. You can even make the activity more festive by listening to your favorite holiday song.

Organize tasks by prioritization

Now that you’re in a good mood, it’s time to tackle the day’s activities. Write down all tasks that need to be done for that day and then prioritize them by level of urgency.

Behavioral science teaches us there’s power in doing this. Not only does your to-do list provide structure and thereby help increase your productivity, but it also removes the cognitive burden of having to remember every single task. Checking off each completed task keeps you on track and allows you to see tangible progress made, which brings a feeling of satisfaction.

Remember it’s okay if all tasks aren’t accomplished for that day. The holidays often bring unexpected tasks. If this happens, try re-visiting your to-do list to include space or cushion for those new additions.

An app like Todist is a great resource for listing and organizing tasks with ease. But a notepad that’s specifically designed for writing your daily to-do’s works too!

Liability through SMART goals

Take your to-do list a step further by turning each task into a SMART goal, one that is “specific”, ”measurable”, ”achievable”, ”realistic”, and “time bound”.

SMART goals improve the quality of our work because they increase our understanding of the task, provide specifics on how to do the behavior(s) associated with the task, and incorporate a deadline.

For example, instead of listing a to-do as “prepare for a sales meeting”, a clearer to-do framed as a SMART goal might read as: “Create an agenda for meeting with the Sales team by the end of the work week.”

Check out this SMART goal template for step-by–step instructions.

Learn to take Light breaks

Taking breaks has been shown to reduce fatigue, burnout, and help to retain motivation. This holiday season, mix in a few 15-20-minute breaks throughout your workday.

Effective ways to take breaks include spending time in nature (which has been shown to improve our mood and decrease stress), chatting with co-workers, talking to family and friends, taking a short walk, or just sitting still and looking out the window.

Regardless of the type of break you take; the goal is to make sure that you are fully detaching from work. When doing so, we are allowing our brain to recharge. This means that we will have refined focus once returning to the task which in effect can increase productivity and creativity.

Pro tip: set reminders on your computer to take breaks (of your choice) throughout the day!

Yummy, Enjoy food with family and friends

All work and no play are no fun. The final tip is to know that your social life matters and to use this time to enjoy great food with family and friends.

Now that we’re in the holiday season, try searching for “festive holiday foods” that you and your family can prepare together.

As you wrap up the year and prepare for the holidays, try incorporating these tips into your routine. These small and practical tips can help you not only excel at work but will give you the space to thrive at home so that you can have a “JOLLY” Holiday!

The post Have a J.O.L.L.Y holiday! 5 tips for Maintaining Work-Life balance appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

Author: Shanta Ricks

Editors: Jenna Clark, Judson Bonick & Shaye-Ann Hopkins

What is DEI?

“Diversity,” “Equity,” and “Inclusion” (DEI) have been popular buzzwords within many businesses and organizations for the past few years. The question is what do companies mean when they say they are striving to have “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion”? People use these words interchangeably, but they are different things.

Diversity

Let’s say an organization is composed of all White males. The company decides to be more intentional about unbiasedly hiring based on merit – hoping to employ a more diverse range of people. They succeed, and as such able to promote diversity within their organization. Diversity is “the presence of differences that may include race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, language, (dis)ability, age, religious commitment, or political perspective. (1)

Equity

A diverse workplace is a good start, but it’s not enough – everyone in the workplace needs to be offered the same opportunities as their counterparts. Let’s say that our newly-diverse company examines employee wages and discovered that men in senior positions are making twice as much as women, although they all have similar work experience and expertise. The company decides to pay all of those in the senior position the same amount. We call this equity. Equity is “promoting justice, impartiality, and fairness within the procedures, processes, and distribution of resources by institutions or systems.” (2)

Inclusion

So far, this company is doing a good job. It has incorporated forms of diversity and equity. Unfortunately, senior leaders begin to hear complaints from their employees about how the work environment doesn’t make them feel comfortable with being themselves. Many say they feel out of place. With a diverse workplace, differences in perspective and opinion are expected,  but organizations should ensure that all people feel valued, heard, and welcomed within their place of work. We call this inclusion. Inclusion is an “outcome to ensure those that are diverse feel and/or are welcomed.

Inclusion outcomes are met when you, your institution, and your program are truly inviting to all. To the degree to which diverse individuals can participate fully in the decision-making processes and development opportunities within an organization or group.” (3)

Solving the question of inclusion may be even tougher than those of diversity and equity, but there’s a silver lining: if an organization truly practices equity in its hiring and promotion, management will likely diversify, making it safer for junior employees to bring their true selves to work.

Benefits: Why we should strive for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

First, and most importantly, incorporating DEI into our organizations is just the right thing to do. But doing so also has many benefits for organizations and society! These include:

• • More profitability. Research shows that diverse companies are associated with higher revenue and profitability. For example, one study by McKinsey (2015) found that ethnically diverse companies are 30% more likely to reach above national industry returns.
  • Enhanced creativity. Workplaces that consist of people of different backgrounds are more likely to foster a more creative environment. Lorenz et al (2017) found that diverse management(e.g., industry background and gender) is associated with increased innovation, and in return leads companies to see an increase in profit.
  • Better decision-making. It’s one thing to be creative and generate ideas, but companies also have to make decisions about how to implement those ideas and move forward. A study by Forbes showed that inclusive teams are better at making decisions up to 87% of the time. They also found that decisions made and executed by diverse teams deliver better results (by 60%).
  • Higher employment engagement. Employees are the key to moving an organization forward. Thus, an important goal is to ensure that employees are content, will stay with their employer, and will be engaged. One avenue to employee engagement is diversity and inclusion. Deloitte (2013) found that employees in a workplace that incorporates both diversity and inclusion report higher levels of engagement, compared to those who experience just diversity or inclusion. They found that these individuals are more likely to stay with their employer, be more engaged, and expend more effort.

How we at the Center for Advanced Hindsight strive for diversity, equity, and inclusion

Nearly two years ago, the Center for Advanced Hindsight (CAH) launched an internal Equity Team. Our goal was to examine how we incorporate DEI into our research, our partnerships, our training, and our own makeup. We’ve taken a few very important first strides (primarily around hiring and research), but recognize there is much more work to do. Check out some of those efforts below.

Diversifying Hiring Practices

We began by examining our practices around hiring research assistants (RAs)—typically these are undergraduate or graduate students who are either paid or volunteer. The Center often sourced RAs from our own institution, Duke University, because internal recruiting is simpler – but that meant we were primarily offering positions to students who would more easily have access to opportunities like this. 

With this in mind, we made an effort to explore recruitment sources beyond our central hub. For example, we began to research and utilize a wider range of job platforms to ensure that our job postings are reaching a wide array of people. By doing this, we have been able to give a much wider range of students the chance to work with us and gain practical experience within the behavioral science space. 

Even more specifically, we have expanded RA opportunities to an amazing school in our backyard, North Carolina Central University (NCCU), a Historically Black University (HBCU) with both Bachelors- and Masters-level psychology students. One of our researchers, an NCCU alumnus, introduced our lab to a psychology professor at NCCU, who helped us to build connections with students who might be interested in becoming RAs. When recruiting researchers, many graduating NCCU students and alumni have applied. 

This has led us to a key understanding which we continue to try to leverage: connections and reach matter when trying to promote DEI.

Conducting Research that Benefits Everyone

Furthermore, our goal at the lab is to ensure that people are engaging in positive financial, health, and environmental behaviors. We acknowledge that the barriers to achieving these behaviors may be different depending on various demographic factors. Based on this, we continue to make a conscious and careful effort to learn how these different demographic factors affect the outcomes we care about.

First, we have made great efforts to include diverse and representative samples in our research. For example, our work on the morality of influencing others’ choices was conducted entirely with nationally representative samples. This is important because it enables us to see if there are any meaningful, demographic-specific findings.

 Second, we are taking into account unique factors (e.g., behavioral biases and structural factors) that are specific to certain demographics to culturally tailor our interventions. For example, from a recent survey we conducted to understand COVID-19 experiences and how that varies by race, we found that Latinx Americans tend to perceive a greater risk for COVID-19 (i.e., catching, spreading, or getting seriously ill from COVID-19) than Black and White Americans. Meanwhile, for Black Americans, the idea that discrimination impacts their ability to receive good health care was one of many factors that were associated with the decision to not get the COVID-19 vaccine. From these findings, we were able to create a list of recommendations on how to develop culturally-tailored messages for unvaccinated Black and Latinx Americans.

Conclusion

Promoting DEI is easier said than done. It requires reevaluating our processes and systems internally and understanding more about how society plays a role externally in our work. It also means that we have to face a tough reality: our work practices may not foster DEI. Still, understanding where we fall short is the first step to improving. Incorporating and maintaining DEI in the workplace will take work and effort, but it’s achievable. 

If you’re interested in learning more about DEI and how to incorporate it within your workplace, check out this article!

References:

1. https://dei.extension.org/
2. Ibid
3. Ibid

The post Why DEI is a Must-Do appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

As we’ve celebrated Black History Month, we’ve shed light onto historical Black figures who made significant contributions to behavioral science. However, we should not only think about historical figures, but those in the present moment. There are so many Black scientists in the making who are currently publishing papers, launching projects, and teaching classes, and Black History Month is a chance to amplify their voices as well.

For our final Black History Month blog post, I had the honor of interviewing Kiana Bess, a fourth-year doctoral student studying Public Health at the University of Michigan. Kiana and I chatted about her research, goals, and inspirations.

Kiana Bess is a Portsmouth, Virginia native who spends most of her time working on her dissertation, however in her free time she likes to engage in physical activities, such as running and Pilates. Kiana has a passion for health and has been in the health space for most of her academic career. She received her Bachelor of Science (BS) in Health Science at James Madison University, and went on to get her Masters in Public Health (MPH) in health promotion (now known as Department Prevention and Community Health) at George Washington University. Shortly afterwards, she worked at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University where she received hands-on research training.

You mentioned that you’ve been in the health domain for most of your academic career. Could you tell us more about that, such as what your research interests are? 

Kiana Bess: Broadly, my research interest focuses on the intersection of place and child/adolescent health outcomes. Particularly I’m interested in how neighborhoods and housing influence the health of Black children who live in metropolitan and urban areas, with a residential segregation lens. So, bringing that component of historical racial housing discriminatory policies to today and contemporary policies and how that affects neighborhood development, housing choices, housing affordability, and how those together are associated with the outcome of Black children.

So, what led you to wanting to know more about how the environment shapes our health and, in particular, Black families? What made you decide, “Okay, this is what I want to focus on”?

KB: A lot of it comes back to my time at GW [George Washington University] that program was absolutely phenomenal and rooted in the community. During that time, I worked with a student-led coalition called “Save Lives, Free the Condoms.” It was formed in response to the presence of condoms being locked or inaccessible on store shelves in pharmacies located in primarily minority neighborhoods in Washington D.C. The overarching goal was to increase condom accessibility to all Washington D.C residents and to reduce reproductive health discrimination.

For me that’s kind of how I got into environment space and health outcomes. The children and youth aspect came into it because we read at the time that HIV and STIs disproportionately affected African Americans in Washington D.C. So, then I was like – well if that’s the case, then why isn’t contraception readily available where these youth live? That was my first connection between neighborhoods and health.  

Could you tell us about your current projects? Is there anything in particular you’re working on that you’re excited about?

KB: Well, my dissertation is my biggest project right now. My dissertation examines the associations between neighborhoods, housing, childhood opportunity levels, and healthy child development. Healthy child development is such a broad term, but I’m looking at behavior (internalizing and externalizing behaviors). That’s actually a new area for me, so I’m excited about that.

“My dissertation is my biggest project right now. My dissertation examines the associations between neighborhoods, housing, childhood opportunity levels, and healthy child development.”

I’m also working on projects related to housing insecurity in association with childhood obesity and stress patterns. Most of my work involves childhood health equity. Race is my thing right now, but I also do work on income. Really for me it’s about the structural factors that are within the environment that are associated with the health outcomes of children.

Let’s transition into understanding more about your identity. You talked about it a little bit. Let’s expand by understanding how it influences your experiences on your academic journey. In what way do you think your race has impacted your academic journey so far?

KB: In public health, we read all the time about health outcomes. It gets heavy and it’s disheartening to hear about the health disparities among Black people, whether it’s chronic illnesses like, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity; mental health concerns such as depression and anxiety; mortality rates and so forth.

“Now the question becomes how do we bring equity and justice to combat these disparities in our community?”

For me, it’s about what can I do to advance health equity? We know there are tons of disparities that we’ve been studying for years. Now the question becomes how do we bring equity and justice to combat these disparities in our community? For me, it starts with looking at all of this within the context of discriminatory structural systems that disproportionately affect Black families and children. That’s how race has impacted my journey.

So, who would you say inspires you, career wise?

KB: I would say, women, women of color, and particularly Black women, who are in the academic research space. I say that because academic research (from what I understand) is kind of cutthroat, it’s a tough field to be in. While it’s rewarding, everyone acknowledges that it can be challenging.

When I see women of color, particularly Black women excel in a space that wasn’t designed for them, it inspires me to keep going because I know it can be done. I’m so appreciative of them because they opened the door for me. This allows me to open the doors for public health scholars or psychologists that are coming in generations behind me.

Do you have any advice that you would like to share with aspiring researchers or people who want to get into public health space?

KB: For the public health space, and any space for that matter, my advice would be two words: keep going! There are going to be roadblocks, there are going to be detours, there are going to be some no’s, there are going to be some rejections, especially in the academic space – like rejection from publications. But if it’s something that you’re really passionate about, just keep going.

“For the public health space, and any space for that matter, my advice would be two words: keep going!”

For example, I was not accepted the first time I applied to doctoral programs, yes, it was a bit devastating. I experienced all the emotions and then I regrouped, reassessed and said okay, what do I need to do to strengthen my application.  I don’t know why I got rejected my first time applying – I could not have been competitive enough. It could have been external factors such as funding or advisor availability, that is more program/school related, I don’t know. But what I did know is I needed to do what I could to ensure I was a stronger and more competitive applicant the next time.

So again, cliche, but everything happens for a reason and in due time…So just keep going, keep trusting, keep believing in yourself.

Well, thank you so much – is there anything else you would like to share before we close out the interview?

KB: No, I can’t think of anything else. When I think about this interview, it made me think of my journey. It can be discouraging sometimes but at the end of the day, it’s so rewarding. Anything that has to do with health equity or equality is such a rewarding field and place to be in.

If you’re interested in learning more about Kiana Bess and her work, please feel free to contact her via email at kbess@umich.edu.

Shanta Ricks is a researcher at the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, an applied behavioral science research lab that helps people be happier, healthier, and wealthier. You can reach her at shanta.ricks@duke.edu

The post Black History Month Spotlight: Kiana Bess appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

Loury’s unique, evidence-based approach helped shape the development of social economics as a field from the 1980s onwards. She helped shed light on how race, background, and familial and social relationships influence educational and job attainment.

Linda Datcher Loury (1952-2011) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned her B.A. in economics, with a concentration in Black Studies from Swarthmore College in 1973. After this, she graduated with her Ph.D. in psychology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1978. There, she met her future husband and research collaborator, Glenn Loury, Professor of Economics at Brown University. After graduating from MIT, she held research and teaching positions at the University of Michigan and the Kennedy School of Government. Loury then transitioned to Tufts University in 1984.

A Professor of Economics at Tufts University, Dr. Loury’s influential research focused primarily on family and neighborhood relations and labor market achievements. Her research paved the way for us to further understand the role that socio-economic background and demographic factors play in educational and job performance. These factors include the types of neighborhoods in which people grew up, educational background of an individual’s grandparents, amount of time mothers spent at home, and examining what factors affect how well individuals do in college.

Some meaningful results from her studies showed firstly that extended family members alter educational outcomes for same-gender adolescents. Secondly, maternal childcare time increases with higher maternal home productivity, and more frequent childcare time of highly educated (but not less well-educated) mothers significantly raises children’s years of schooling.

In addition to these studies, Dr. Loury is the author of and contributed to many seminal papers. These papers include “Job Information Networks, Neighborhood Effects, and Inequality”, along with “Effects of Community and Family Background on Achievement”, “Some Contacts Are More Equal than Others: Informal Networks, Job Tenure, and Wages”, and “Am I still too Black for you?: Schooling and secular change in skin tone effects“.

Due to Dr. Loury’s contributions, she was referred to as the “grandmother” of economic research on peer effects and social interactions. As a true economist, she was driven by her love of numbers and data. She used this method to understand and share the truth behind any research question. Loury evaluated commonly held social beliefs with academic scrutiny. As stated by Roland Fryer, the Robert M. Beren professor of economics at Harvard: “It’s an exceedingly rare quality for someone to use their intuition to develop questions for research topics, but then put intuition on the back burner and let data guide them the rest of the way. That’s what she did.’’

Furthermore, Loury was involved in the creation of several courses during her tenure at Tufts. These include Women in the Labor Market, Income Inequality, Poverty and Economic Justice, Topics in Non−Competitive Labor Markets, and Blacks and Labor Markets.

Her interest in achievement spanned beyond her academic work and was shown by her community involvement and contributions. For example, she founded a network of African American families in the Boston area, volunteered in her children’s school, and was an active member of her church’s efforts to assist disadvantaged children.

Dr. Loury made countless vital contributions to economics research at Tufts until she died in 2011 due to cancer at 59. It was evident that she had a brilliant mind. Her unique research spanned a wide range of topics related to labor economics and covered the impact of systemic issues that confronted a range of communities, especially low-income Blacks. As a true pioneer in the field, her life and research have inspired modern-day scientists. Her work helped identify potential barriers to achievement while showing what can be done in the behavioral science space to tackle these issues as we aim to advance this generation of black scientists.

Be sure to read our final Black History Month post next week, where we will cover a present African American scientist that has contributed to behavioral science.

Shaye-Ann McDonald is a researcher at the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, an applied behavioral science research lab that helps people be happier, healthier, and wealthier. You can reach her at shayeann.mcdonald@duke.edu.

References

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/000282806777212099

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1926773

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775709000028?via%3Dihub

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/499974

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/298375

https://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2011/10/02/linda_datcher_loury_59_pioneer_in_social_economics/?page=full

https://www.ideas42.org/blog/honoring-black-behavioral-scientists-and-examining-the-psychology-of-race-in-history/

https://academicinfluence.com/people/linda-datcher-loury

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/0022051043004595

https://tuftsdaily.com/news/2011/09/28/in-memory-of-linda-loury/

The post Black History Month Spotlight: Linda Datcher Loury appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

You may not have heard of Dr. Robert Lee Williams II (1930-2020), but you have almost certainly heard of his work.  Born in Arkansas during the Jim Crow era, he had to overcome considerable obstacles to become a psychologist. His mother, Rosie Lee Mitchell, had received no more than a few years’ schooling. All the same, she knew the value of formal education: when Williams was little, she told him “Boy, go get that piece of paper.”

Williams took those words to heart, but his path was not easy. During his junior year in high school, an aptitude test suggested he was better suited for manual labor than intellectual pursuits. This was a serious blow to his confidence – but those around Williams recognized his brilliance and convinced him to persevere.

His determination paid off: by 1955 he was the first African American psychologist to work at a state mental health facility anywhere in Arkansas, and he didn’t stop there. In 1961, he earned his doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis.

In the first decade of his career, Dr. Williams excelled as a practitioner, serving as the chief psychologist of the Jefferson Barracks Veteran Affairs Hospital in St. Louis and as a consultant for the National Institute of Mental Health.  In 1968, he helped found the National Association of Black Psychologists; as its second president, he crafted and disseminated a 10-Point Plan that helped build a pipeline for future generations Black psychologists across the United States.

In 1970, Dr. Williams embarked on the next stage of his career as a professor of psychology and Chair of Black Studies at Washington University. In this role, he founded a curriculum that was unique and cutting-edge, inspiring similar departments across the country. Through his Institute for Black Studies, he conducted research designed to shine a light on the many ways in which American culture and society was systematically embedded with anti-Blackness.

For example, Dr. Williams created the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity (BITCH) – an IQ test written with language drawn from the African American experience. African Americans routinely outscored White Americans on the BITCH, proving Williams’ point that the tests of the day – much like the one he had taken himself over twenty years before – were built on biased language and assumptions.

It is perhaps in the field of language where Dr. Williams had his greatest impact. In 1975, his book “Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks” explained how the English spoken by African Americans was a dialect of its own rather than a substandard version of conventional English as many believed. Prior to Williams’ use of Ebonics, terms like “Nonstandard Negro English” were openly pejorative. Though the term Ebonics has now largely been superseded by African American Vernacular English (AAVE), the call to understand African-American use of language as cultural rather than pathological is still critically important in today’s times.

Dr. Williams’ service to psychology is difficult to overstate. Not only did his work shine light on the many ways in which bias was embedded in ostensibly objective fields such as intelligence testing, his administrative work and university service helped inspire many other Black students to follow him into the field. Gerald Early, the current chair of African and African American Studies at Washington University, is just one of many who remember Dr. Williams fondly: “He gave young scholars like myself a lot of inspiration and hope that I could be tenured because he was a tenured professor at Washington University, where at the time there weren’t very many black professors.”

Vernon J. Mitchell, a lecturer in American Culture at Washington University, agrees.

“He was able to tap in to us and provide a sense of both urgency, care and concern and confidence that allowed us to be our best selves as not just students, but student leaders. He expected us to be like him and do amazing things.”

As both an outstanding scholar and an inspiring mentor, Dr. Williams has created a legacy that has not ended with his recent death at the age of 90. His contributions to the behavioral sciences will likely only continue to grow with time.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Williams_(psychologist)

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/education/2020-08-20/psychologist-robert-l-williams-ii-wash-us-black-studies-founder-dies-at-90

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/what-ebonics-african-american-english

https://aaregistry.org/story/black-psychologists-create-their-own-association-abpsi/

https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/robert-lee-williams-ii-7742/

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