On Going Home for Winter Break: How to Reduce Biased Behavior at the Dinner Table

As Reedies wrap up their finals and look forward to a well-deserved winter break, some might worry about exchanging the safety of the Reed bubble for family dinners, especially when some loved ones have made questionable or explicitly biased comments before. Perhaps an uncle is known for making racist jokes, or you’ve been rolling over in your bed since Thanksgiving trying to figure out whether your neighbor’s comment about your mom’s cooking was sexist or not. To find your way out of the ambiguities of bias and improve the family dinner experience for everyone, the Quest is here to support you in anticipation of winter break. As a Reedie who’s taking Psychology 325: Stereotyping & Prejudice, I will address the question: what can you do to reduce biased behavior?

The first step in reducing bias is to recognize bias. Especially in the case of sexism, this can be difficult, as explained in a 2019 chapter by Jessica Good, Associate Professor of Psychology at Davidson College published in the edited volume Confronting Prejudice and Discrimination. A lot of sexist behavior is normalized through the disguise of humor, and some people believe sexism is not an issue anymore. Sometimes, behavior that seems to talk positively about some women can be harmful towards other women. Consider, for example, a comment that a man might make about a specific act of sexual harassment: “As a father of two daughters and as a husband to my wife, I condemn perpetrators of sexual harassment.” This comment may seem to support women, reinforcing beliefs that the man is not sexist, yet he only speaks about certain women who are under the man’s protection, i.e. his daughters and wife. This notion only supports women who are valued through their intimate and heterosexual relationship with a man, and fails to support women at a broader societal level. This ambiguity may make it difficult to recognize sexist events.

To make it easier to recognize sexism and other forms of bias, it can be helpful to watch videos or read articles that explain why certain comments are biased, and to talk to the people targeted about their experiences with bias. I urge you to take that uncomfortable gut feeling seriously, and discuss with others why that neighbor’s comment about your mom’s cooking may have been sexist.

Now that you have the tools to recognize biased behavior, what is next? Confrontation! In 2018, social psychologists Kimberley Chaney and Diana Sanchez tested the efficacy of interpersonal confrontations on prejudice reduction. People who are confronted about their bias will often feel guilty and ruminate, which leads them to use fewer negative stereotypes a week after the confrontation, even if their immediate reaction is to disagree. Confronting a person about their bias is thus effective, and it’s effective regardless of who is confronting or how hostile the confrontation is. It may also set a new norm for those family dinners, as your confrontation can influence others to change their biased behavior as well.

There are many ways to confront a person about their bias, such as questioning them (“what do you mean by that?”), showing signs of surprise, reporting the incident, ignoring the comment, or using humor or sarcasm. You can choose a method that works best for you, and some methods will be more effective in one situation than another. The method that’s usually most effective is explicit confrontation, which social psychologist and professor Megan Bruun taught in the course “Stereotyping and Prejudice.” In the interpersonal context, so for instance at this family dinner table, it’s most effective to call someone in rather than calling them out. You could reinforce that you view this person as someone who cares about being anti-racist, not sexist, or fair, whilst saying that the comment they made is biased. Try to explain why the comment is biased and what the consequences of this bias are, especially when the perpetrator says “it’s no big deal.”

If the idea of confronting someone’s bias makes you nervous, consider practicing your preferred response. This may sound silly, but when you’re in a situation in which bias is targeted against your identity, you may feel agitated. This can make it harder to respond in a way you might wish to respond when you have more time to consider your response. Thinking through strategies and rehearsing a confrontation can help make this response easier when you need it.

The responsibility of confronting bias often falls on the targets of bias, in the case of racial bias, Black people often are the ones to speak up. However, a 2019 study by Jill Gulker and her colleagues in Social Influence showed that the most effective way of confronting perpetrators is when white people confront other white people about their bias. This is not to say that it’s ineffective if Black people confront white people, but I urge white people to actively recognize bias towards others and confront perpetrators. In doing this, it’s important not to take on the role of a white savior by glorifying this confrontation of bias, but rather to make space for and amplify the voices of marginalized people.

However, it’s crucial to acknowledge that, in some situations, it is unsafe to confront bias, especially when your identity is targeted, and it is okay if you do not respond the way you wish you had responded. The effectiveness of a confrontation depends on all kinds of situational factors, like how open the perpetrator of bias is to being confronted. Be kind to yourself when confrontations of bias go differently than expected, and talk to people that you trust for support.

The Quest hopes this has given Reedies some trust and tools to confront bias, whether this is within the Reed bubble, at a family dinner, or wherever they are spending their winter break.