The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 2, Chapters 4-5

Part 3, Chapters 6-7

Part 4, Chapters 8-11

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Benefits of Cultivating a Growth Mindset and Embracing Mistakes as a Learning Opportunity

Dolly Chugh celebrates the benefits of cultivating a growth mindset and approaching failure as a learning opportunity in each section of her analysis, connecting each of her points to these touchstones—two critical actions that readers must take to transform from believers into builders. She defines the term mindset as “our belief about our capacity to learn and improve” (23). Individuals with a growth mindset see themselves as works-in-progress with the capacity for change, growth, and improvement. By contrast, those with fixed mindsets see themselves as fully formed. The growth mindset is malleable, while the fixed mindset is “an “either/or” mindset” that eliminates the possibility of development and positive change.

While activating a growth mindset requires individual will, Chugh demonstrates ways it can be cultivated and nurtured by external culture and community. In workplaces, for example, supervisors who want workers to cultivate a growth mindset must foster psychological safety. If workers feel safe speaking up, proposing ideas, disclosing inability, confessing uncertainty, asking for help, admitting mistakes, and taking blame, it enables learning, which, in turn, improves performance. In anti-bias work, the fixed mindset prompts individuals to walk on eggshells out of fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. A fixed mindset is also mentally taxing, redirecting attention from the task at hand to manage fear of being wrong. The preoccupation with not being wrong hinders opportunities to learn from mistakes. By contrast, cultivating a growth mindset not only empowers individuals to approach mistakes as learning opportunities, but also makes mistakes less likely to occur in the future.

Chugh refutes arguments that viewing mistakes as integral to the learning process makes people less conscientious about their behavior by pointing to research showing the benefits of cultivating a growth mindset:

Research says that when we view ourselves as works-in-progress, we are more willing to hold ourselves accountable for our actions. We are more likely to apologize to people we have hurt, and we offer better, more complete apologies. Accountability is higher, not lower, when we give ourselves room to grow (35).

Activating a growth mindset requires being open to making mistakes through trial and error, which might include experimenting with ways of centering new voices, as Perrin tried, and failed, to do with Project Greenlight. Instead of shutting down in the face of failure, however, Perrin chose to approach his mistakes as learning opportunities. Alongside Brittany, Perrin organized new film contests that centered underrepresented voices and attracted diverse viewers. His mindset allowed him to move through the discomfort of failure without getting bogged down in shame, and keep trying until he reached his goal of organizing a diverse and inclusive film competition. By providing a concrete example of a person who tried, failed, and tried again, Chugh empowers her readers to make mistakes, learn, and ultimately, grow.

The Effects of Implicit Bias on Decision-Making and Behavior

Chugh employs the example of Rick Klau and the web-based Implicit Association Test (IAT) to demonstrate how implicit bias affects decision-making and behavior even when one’s implicit biases do not align with their explicit beliefs. Rick believes that women should have equal opportunities in the workplace. To that end, he goes out of his way to hire female job applicants in his capacity as a partner in a Silicon Valley investment company. When his company first raised the issue, Rick did not believe he needed implicit bias training. After taking the IAT, however, Rick realized that unconscious bias was likely impacting his behavior in ways previously invisible to him, ways that contradicted his explicit beliefs. Indeed, implicit bias can have significant implications for managerial behaviors, as evidenced by myriad studies (48). For Rick, this includes “who he hires, whose potential he bets on, whose emotional response he trusts, whose ideas he values, and who he views as leadership material” (48). It might also impact his perception of men who take parental leave, and of women who don’t take maternal leave (48).

Although Chugh devotes much of her discussion of implicit bias to Rick, her inclusion of statistics alerts readers to the pervasiveness of the problem. Rick is not alone in his unconscious associations that demonstrated a gender bias. Indeed, more than 75% of Americans who take the Gender IAT do the same (47). Racial bias is equally pervasive: “70 to 75 percent of all people who take the IAT in the United States show implicit race bias. They are more likely to associate white with good and with harmless objects, and black with bad and with weapons. Among white Americans, the percentage is around 85” (47). Like Rick, however, readers are not doomed to always behave in ways that don’t align with their moral values. Chugh argues that awareness is the first step to addressing the effects of implicit bias. Learning about the problem through workshops, books, and discussions is the next logical step, followed by actions that directly combat implicit bias. In Rick’s case, this involved actively seeking out non-white men in professional contexts, not participating in all-male professional panels, and shifting the gender ratio of people with whom he interacted on social media. Rick also developed unconscious bias training programs in hundreds of companies and encouraged people to take the IAT. Chugh positions Rick as a model for readers wanting to address the problem of implicit bias.

Debunking the Myth of Meritocracy and Combatting Privilege to Promote Social Justice

Meritocracy is one of the most pervasive myths in American society. The myth holds that talent and hard work lead to success, or put another way, that people can get ahead simply by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Chugh uses Colleen’s story both to explain the meritocracy myth and to debunk it. Colleen recounts that her belief in meritocracy rested on the narrative she had been told about her maternal grandfather, who capitalized on the American GI Bill to get a university education and a mortgage, which allowed him and his wife to buy a home and build generational wealth. Colleen was enamored with this story: “Part of my growing up and loving America is this narrative that everyone is created equal and everyone has opportunity” (67).

Teaching in an underprivileged neighborhood prompted Colleen to question and then reject the myth of meritocracy. Colleen realized that a key issue was missing from her grandparents’ story, namely, privilege. Colleen’s grandfather was able to attend the university of his choice only because he was white. Had he been Black, systemic barriers would have hindered his ability to pursue an advanced degree. Few colleges and universities admitted Black students in the 1960s. Those that did had more stringent admissions criteria for Black applicants. Moreover, the Black students who were admitted faced a hostile environment, including segregated housing. Similar barriers prevented Black veterans from benefiting from the GI Bill’s promise of low-interest, zero-down-payment mortgages, as evidenced by statistics: “Of the first 67,000 mortgages insured by the GI Bill, fewer than one hundred were taken out by non-whites. Many localities excluded black neighborhoods from the loan criteria and excluded blacks from moving into white neighborhoods” (73). Colleen’s hypothetical Black grandfather would likely not have bought a house or received a university degree. Thus, he would not have built the generational wealth from which Colleen benefited.

Various kinds of privilege, or tailwinds, continue to help some Americans succeed. Being white, male, and straight bestows privilege, as does not having a disability. By contrast, racial and ethnic minorities, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities face headwinds in key spheres including education, housing, employment, healthcare, and policing. Chugh argues that hard work and resilience are not enough to combat systemic barriers. Moreover, holding on to the meritocracy narrative obfuscates the systemic narrative. Creating a more equitable society requires debunking the myth of meritocracy and addressing systemic discrimination, as well as individual bias. Chugh’s book calls white people to activate their growth mindset, overcome self-threat, and actively participate in promoting social justice.