Molly Haas Cowan, PsyD John A. “Jay” Mills, PhD, ABPP Jeanne M. Slattery, PhD Ethics Educators, Pennsylvania Psychological Association, October 4, 2013

1. Molly Haas Cowan, PsyD
John A. “Jay” Mills, PhD, ABPP
Jeanne M. Slattery, PhD
Positive Multiculturalism
as Aspirational Ethical
Practice: Concepts and
Applications

2. Good Practice
Positive
Multiculturalism
Ethical Practice

3. Our Goals
1. Use Code of Ethics to guide a multicultural practice;
2. Describe a positive multicultural approach, as well
as reasons for paying attention to multicultural
issues;
3. Recognize barriers to developing multicultural
competency; and
4. Identify strategies for teaching students to apply
accepted professional principles in determining
how or when to deliver services to multicultural
populations

4. Guidelines on multicultural education, training,
research, practice, and organizational change
Guideline #1: Psychologists are encouraged to recognize that, as
cultural beings, they may hold attitudes and beliefs that can
detrimentally influence their perceptions of and interactions
with individuals who are ethnically and racially different from
themselves.
Guideline #2: Psychologists are encouraged to recognize the
importance of multicultural sensitivity/responsiveness,
knowledge, and understanding about ethnically and racially
different individuals.
Guideline #3: As educators, psychologists are encouraged to
employ the constructs of multiculturalism and diversity in
psychological education.
Guideline #5: Psychologists strive to apply culturally-appropriate
skills in clinical and other applied psychological practices.

5. Today the nation is no longer divided along [racial]
lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat
it as if it were. –John Roberts (6/2013) www.nydailynews.c
om

6. Perceived racism(Norton & Sommers,
2011)
Blacks continue to indicate drastically poorer outcomes for Black
than White Americans: "from employment to police treatment, loan
rates to education," yet…

7. Perhaps this reflects perception as a zero sum
game (Norton & Sommers, 2011)

8. Teaching multicultural ideas can be difficult

9. What do we see as racism? (Sommers &
Norton, 2006)
1. Discomfort/unfamiliarity (e.g., is uncomfortable
around Blacks; doesn't socialize regularly with Blacks)
2. Overt racism (e.g., discourages kids from playing with
Blacks; thinks Blacks are not suited for certain
professions)
3. Denial of problem (e.g., Thinks slavery was so long ago
it is unimportant to talk about; doesn't speak up or act
when someone else is racist)
• People of Color are more likely to identify subtle forms
of bias as racism
• White observers often respond to allegations of subtle
bias with skepticism or questions about ulterior motives

10. Barriers?
When:
• Attitudes are the result of personal experience
• Perceive self as an expert
• Expect a favorable outcome from status quo
• Attitudes are repeatedly expressed
• Stand to win—or lose—something due to the
issue

11. Barriers in classroom?
• Student anger/discomfort (Sweatt, Pedrotti, & Langner,
2013)
• May need to acknowledge/give up privilege
• Instructor background (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Agenda?
• Lack of expertise?
• Lack of instructor knowledge and perceived self-assessed
expertise in content areas (Turner, Burnes, & Taylor, 2013)
• Often weaker student evaluations (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Questions about what should be included
• Turner et al. did not assess religion/spirituality, for example
• Content or theory? (Turner et al., 2013)

12. White racial identity (Slattery & Park, 2011)
1. Contact
2. Disintegration
3. Reintegration
4. Pseudo-independence
5. Independence

13. What would you do?
Reactions to anti-Muslim comments

14. Problem with self-reports (Banaji &
Greenwald, 2013)
1. White lies
• How are you?
• Do I look fat in these?
2. Gray lies
• Can you spare a dollar?
• Is Ms. X at home?
3. Colorless lies
• How may cigarettes do you smoke a day?
4. Red lies
• I love you.
4. Blue lies
• Did you go to church this week?
www.financefox.ca

15. Implicit Association Test

16. Shoot or no shoot? (Watt & Sherbourne, in
progress)

17. Reactions to taking Implicit Attitude
Test (Casad, Flores, & Didway, 2012)
Accurate Inaccurate Unsure
After
taking IAT
33% 46% 21%

18. Why? (Casad et al., 2012)
Reasons given for IAT's invalidity
Structure of test is problematic 25%
In-group preference 15%
Explicit and implicit attitude
incongruence
13%
Measures cultural stereotypes 8%
Measures associations, not
prejudice
6%
Measures snap judgments 6%

19. Reactions to taking Implicit Attitude
Test (Casad et al., 2012)
Accurate Inaccurate Unsure
After
taking IAT
33% 46% 21%
After
lecture/
reading
45% 33% 22%

20. What happens when we are
colorblind? (Plaut, Thomas, & Goren, 2009)
Whites' color
blindness
Minorities'
psychological
engagement
Minorities'
perception of
bias
Whites'
multiculturalis
m
-.66 *** .57* -.70 **
Whites' color
blindness
-- -.54* .54*
Minorities'
psychological
engagement
-- -- -.76***
* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

21. What changes would we like to see in
our students?
Attitude
BehaviorSelf-reflection
Knowledge

22. What changes? (Pope, 1993; Reynolds, 1997)
• First-order changes (assimilation)
• Increased awareness, knowledge, skills
• Second-order change (accommodation)
• Cognitive restructuring
• Worldview and paradigm shifts

23. Bloom's Taxonomy (Anderson, Krathwohl, Airasian,
Cruikshank, Mayer, Pintrich, Raths, & Wittrock, 2000)

24. Stages of change (Prochaska, 1999)
• Precontemplation
• Contemplation
• Action
• Maintenance

25. Ethical acculturation model
(Handelsman, Gottlieb, & Knapp, 2005)
High Low
High Assimilation Integration
Low Marginalization Separation
Personal Ethics
Professional
Ethics

26. Our modification
High Low
High Assimilation Integration
Low Marginalization Separation
Personal Commitment to
Multicultural Competence
Professional
Commitment

27. How do we help students develop
their multicultural competence?
• A single multicultural course (90%, Hill &
Strozer, 1992)
• Mainstream across the curriculum
• Both a single course and mainstreaming

28. Changes reported by students (Sammons
& Speight, 2008)
%
Increased knowledge 69
Increased self-awareness 66
Attitudinal change (both
positive and negative)
33
Behavioral change 24

29. What do students attribute change to?
(Sammons & Speight, 2008)
%
Interactive activities 34
Didactic activities 32
Course as a whole 15
Instructor influence 11
Reflective activities 8

30. The Color of Fear

31. Recommendations
• In-class discussion, with films and lectures less
frequently identified (Pedrotti, 2013; Sammons &
Speight, 2008; Yi & Lee, 2013)
• Peer teaching may put face to issues (Sweatt et al.,
2013)
• Identifying the benefits for all members in, for
example, identifying oppression (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Consider multiculturalism in terms of both minority
and majority group membership (Sweatt et al., 2013)
• Help students develop a model for working through
ethical decision making, using openness, tolerating
ambiguity, holding positions tentatively, and
becoming self-aware (Tjelveit, 2006)

32. Recommendations from our
experience
• Start where they are
• Foster sensitivity to signs of own biases
• Encourage empathy-inducing activities
• Exploration of aesthetic traditions from other
countries
• Direct engagement in perspective-broadening
activities
• Contact with situations that cause cognitive
dissonance
• Perform psychosocial histories of clients (seeing
beyond symptoms)

33. Andrea Yates
Resnick: And so you thought that your children,
all five of your children, somehow because of
what you saw as your defective mothering,
were not on the path of righteousness and were
stumbling. [Hmm] And did you feel then that it
was good for them or bad for them, if you in fact
threw them into the sea—or in a bathtub—in a
very real sense? What were you trying to
accomplish then when you did take your
children’s lives?
Yates: Maybe in their innocent years … God
would take them up.
Resnick: It would be their innocent years and
God would take them up? Is that what you
said?
Yates: Be with him. Uh huh.
Resnick: God would take them up to be with Him
in heaven? Is that what you mean? [Uh huh.] All
right. And if you had not taken their lives, what
did you think would happen to them?
Yates: Guess they would have continued
stumbling.
Resnick: And where would they end up?
www.nytimes.com

34. Lia Lee and her mother

35. Henry Louis Gates Jr.
news.harvard.edu

36. References
American Psychological Association. (2002). Guidelines on multicultural education, training,
research, practice, and organizational change for psychologists. Retrieved from
http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/multicultural-guidelines.aspx
Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., Pintrich, P. R.,
Raths, J., & Wittrock. M. C (2000). Taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing, A revision
of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2013). Blindspot: Hidden biases of good people. New York, NY:
Delacorte.
Casad, B. J., Flores, A. J., & Didway, J. D. (2012). Using the Implicit Attitude Test as an
unconsciousness raising tool in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 40, 118-123.
Handelsman, M. M., Gottlieb, M. C., & Knapp, S. (2005). Training ethical psychologists: An
acculturation model. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 36, 59–65.
Lee, M. R., & Yi., S. (2013, August). Qualitative reports of multicultural learning in psychology
students. Poster presented at the meetings of the American Psychological Association,
Honolulu, HI
Norton, M. I, & Sommers, S. R. (2011). Whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are
losing. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(3), 215–218.
Plaut, V. C., Thomas, K. M., & Goren, M. J. (2009). Is multiculturalism or color blindness better
for minorities? Psychological Science, 20(4), 444-446.
Pedrotti, J. T. (2013, August). I can do it! Perceptions of cultural self-efficacy in a multicultural
psychology class. Poster presented at the meetings of the American Psychological
Association, Honolulu, HI.

37. References (cont.)
Prochaska, J. O. (1999). How do people change, and how can we change to help many more
people? In M. A. Hubble, B. L. Duncan, & S. D. Miller (Eds.). The heart and soul of change:
What works in therapy (pp. 227–255). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Sammons, C.C., & Speight, A. L. (2008). A qualitative investigation of graduate-student changes
associated with multicultural counseling courses. Counseling Psychologist, 36, 814-838.
Slattery, J. M., & Park, C. L. (2011). Empathic counseling: Meaning, context, ethics, and skill.
Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2006). Lay theories about white racists: what constitutes
racism (and what doesn't). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 117-138.
Sweatt, L., Pedrotti, J. T., & Langner, C. (2013, August). Teaching about multiculturalism: Views
from the front of the classroom. Poster presented at the meetings of the American
Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI
Tjeltveit, A. C. (2006). To what ends? Psychotherapy goals and outcomes, the good life, and the
principle of beneficence. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 43, 186-200.
doi:10.1037/0033-3204.43.2.186
Turner, S. M., Burnes, T. R., & Taylor, S. (2013, August). Life experience or clinical expertise:
Exploring instructor content knowledge in cross-cultural courses. Poster presented at the
meetings of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI
Watt, J., & Sherburne, C. L. (2011). Implicit attitudes as viewed through a shoot-no shoot