Unpacking Unconscious Bias: It's Not What You Think
Original Article Appeared on Medium.com
When a friend — I’ll call her Marilyn — asked for my “best psychotherapist take” on how to tell her 9-year old daughter they could not keep the stray kitten they’d discovered in a ditch near their home, I was ready with offers born of many years of experience on topics like this. Not a good time for the family to add a new member, or incur the expenses of a pet? An opportunity to teach a child about boundaries and limits in life. Worried the child will not do her part to care for the kitten? Consider this an opportunity to teach about accountability. Lay out the new responsibilities leveraged against a set of rewards for meeting them.
“Its not that,” said Marilyn. “I just hate cats. I don’t even get why people want pets.”
This took straight aim at my assumptions. I am not only pro-pet, I am very definitely pro-cat. My desire to be continue to be pro-Marilyn, a person I respect and care about, propelled a friendly grilling about what I considered her “problem with cats.” A cat-associated trauma of some kind? Something about their disposition?
“I can’t give a reason,” she said, after a long pause. “I really don’t know why I’m saying no to this.” Still anti-cat, she agreed that it was pro-parent for her to think about it for a week before making a decision with emotional weight for her daughter.