To which In-group do you belong?

Why DE&I keeps us all honest.

Take a moment to consider the type of people who you typically relate to?? I guess you might casually say they are what you'd call, "Like minded people," yes?? They are people, a bit like yourself, with similar interests, attitudes, values and beliefs.? You might say they are part of your tribe, what psychologists call your, “In-group.”? They are the people you identify with, above and separate from others, who become the Out-group.? Can you see how easy it is to associate yourself with one group, in a way that brings with it a degree of separation from other people; be that a soft separateness which is virtually indistinguishable, or separateness based on very distinctive features. Here's the syllogistic argument, for like mindedness, think stereotypical, for seeking out likeminded people, think prejudice and for separateness think discrimination.? To some degree, do we not all internally experience these complexes in our relationship with others? The question perhaps is not whether we do, nor how judgements manifest, rather, it is whether we are consciously aware of prejudicial and discriminatory behaviours in ourselves and attend to minimising them.??

As recently as 1979, Henri Tajfel and John Turner, delivered their concept of Social Identity Theory. This is the primary framework explaining in-group and out-group dynamics.?"Social Identity Theory" suggests individuals derive part of their self-esteem from their group memberships and strive to maintain and protect a positive social identity by favouring their in-group members over others.?Tajfel published his famous, minimal group paradigm in 1970, it is a widely used experimental technique for studying intergroup perceptions and behavior. In its original form, it involved the assignment of participants to one of two meaningless categories and asking them to make allocations of rewards to other (anonymous) members of those groups. Typically, discrimination in favour of the In-group is observed in reward allocations made. ?I guess Abraham Maslow would say these people are motivated by deficiency, a sense of lack, believing that they will never be happy or complete until they get a promotion or bigger pay-cheque. Being motivated by deficiency is a psychological doom loop, because the sense of lack and search for happiness has nothing to do with social status or wealth; its internal to you and only solvable through internal work.

Whilst most of us would consciously deny being judgemental on our first encounter with another, our natural primordial tendency is to sub-consciously sense whether the other person presents a risk to our safety, thereafter, we sense whether we are attracted to them or not.? These are autonomic subjective judgements that we all make, all of the time, in the interests of personal safety.? They happen through our autonomic nervous system, as regularly as our heart beats. But here's the thing,? a majority of people can learn to manage their subjective judgements with varying degrees of success, in order to welcome humanity with love, compassion and humility, others are less successful, for one reason or another. This is why DE&I is so important in life, because we all instinctively judge, form preferences that lead to prejudices and ultimately discrimination.? I say this after many hours of self-reflection on my own judgemental tendencies:

“I know these originate from life experiences and conditioning.? As a Baby Boomer, I was raised during the 1960-80s, in an environment of sub-conscious racial and sexual prejudice.? I know I have these prejudicial traits lying deep within my sub-conscious. However, I have continuous curiosity to explore them, become aware of how they operate in my psyche, such that I can attend to them when I sense them surfacing.”

I am not unusual in this regard, many people control their conditioned prejudices, regrettably many don’t, resulting in harmful consequences.

DE&I is not a fashion, nor a gesture to correct behaviour, it is an awakening , bringing awareness to humankinds natural instinctive judgemental behaviours which can cause suffering.? A good example of why DE&I policies are so necessary can be found with the Boston symphonia, often quoted as a classic case of patriarchal prejudice and discrimination before a blind audition policy was introduced for the recruitment of musicians. In 1970 female musicians represented just 5% of all players in the top 5 orchestras across America. By 1997 female musicians accounted for 25% of all players.? In 2016 the percentage increased to 47%, illustrating that the introduction of blind auditions removed the opportunity for prejudice and discrimination to have an effect. But the DE&I story does not end there for the Boston Symphony orchestra. In 2019? the principal flautist of the?BSO, settled a lawsuit she filed against the orchestra in July, in which she claimed that she was being paid substantially less than her closest, male peer. She sought more than $200,000 in unpaid wages. An out of court settlement resulted. She was among the first women to file a gender pay-equity claim under the?Massachusetts Equal Pay Act. Her case was being closely followed by the classical music industry as well as by those interested more broadly in gender parity issues.

Who then, we might ask, would benefit from shutting down all efforts to maintain diversity equality an inclusion in life, that is unity in life. Maybe, just maybe, it is those people who see advantage in division in life. Where the I and mine are of more importance than the well-being of everyone:

“I used to be one of those solipsistic, self-centred, people, as I tried to hide my authenticity behind a persona. So, I do have an understanding, an awareness of how separation comes about. In those years of separateness, I was completely unaware a building ever taller walls of separation and becoming further displaced from people I knew and loved. Now I find myself living my authentic life, true to who I really am, those walls of separateness have come tumbling down and I feel at one, and in love with life. I do not judge anyone who finds themselves trapped in their world of I and mine, it is most likely not of their making. My learning is that when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.”

Donald Hebbs (1949) brought us all to realise that the mind has plasticity, neurons can fire an rewire to form new neural pathways that lead to new habits and behaviours. But there needs to be found within each of us a rational reason to do it, that will sustain us on our journey of change.

In the US this January we have witnessed a leadership in-group forming in the Federal government, which is being likened to an Oligarchy. An in-group comprising the countries largest private business owners, possessing sufficient political power to influence their own interests, controlling multiple businesses and coordinating activities across business sectors with like-minded people; classic In-group behaviour according to Tajfel and Turner.? This is not uncommon in business leadership groups, dominated by stereotypical types, who take care of self-interest before the general wellbeing of the Out-group. The supplicant arguments that colour blind meritocracies are the way to go only serve the closed self-interest over the interests of all.?

From a psychological standpoint, DE&I is not fashion, it’s a virtue, a recognition of the human condition to form sub-conscious judgements that lead to separation and harm. Sociological data tells us that the wealth gap between Haves and Have-nots is growing, as In-groups at the top exercise their preference to reward likeminded people, to the cost of those in the Out-group.

PennyXxxx