Reflections on ARP
Kelci Harris
This summer I attended ARP in Charlotte, and it opened my eyes to the lack of diversity in our field. I learned a lot from the symposia, poster sessions, and mentor lunch, but what I enjoyed the most about the conference was putting faces to the names of people who’s articles I’ve read. I got to really see the field of personality psychology. What I saw, though, was mostly white and, for the older set, male. I shouldn’t have been surprised, the demographics of academia are pretty well known, but nevertheless, there was a moment during one of the symposia when I looked around the room of about 75 people and I came to the all too familiar realization that I was only one of maybe four racial/ethnic minorities in the room. Every time this awareness creeps up on me, I wonder why it is that I am alone. This time, instead of shrugging that feeling off, I took some time to think about it, and this essay details what I’ve come up with.
I can’t speak to the experiences of members of other underrepresented minorities. I can’t even speak to the experiences of all African American students, so I will focus on my personal experiences in academia. Take them for what you will.
Looking back on my undergraduate experience at the University of North Carolina, there were lots of other African-American psychology majors. Many African-American students also participated in research. In my graduating class, of the 40 students who completed honors theses, six of us were African-American, which was representative of the percentage of African-American students on campus. There were also a few African-American faculty members in the psychology department concentrated in the clinical and developmental areas. The funny thing is, most of the research conducted by African-American members of the department, students and faculty, had something to do with race. And that wasn’t just the case in the psychology department. Most of the African-American faculty members I encountered throughout the university, from romance languages to anthropology, conducted research about race. And that wasn’t just the case at my school! When I was surveying department websites, trying to figure out where to apply for grad school, I noticed that African-American faculty members in psychology departments across the country seem to be studying race. After a while, it started to seem like to be African-American and an academic meant that one’s scholarship had to somehow focus on the black experience. And in a way that makes sense. Simply being a member of a minority means that the world interacts with you in a different way than it would if you were not. Those interactions are a breeding ground for research questions that need to be answered. However, when you consider the “typical academic”, the white male found in every department researching whatever suits his taste, it seems to me like the “African-American academic” mold is constraining. While race is one of the more personally relevant research topics for minority students, there are so many things about the world, beyond race, that are fascinating and worth studying. I’m suggesting that as a field we make it a priority to convince minority students that personality and individual differences research is relevant and worth pursuing.
Personality psychology should be intrinsically interesting to everyone, because, well, everyone has a personality. It’s accessible and that makes our research so fun and an easy thing to talk about with non-psychologists, that is, once we’ve explained to them what we actually do. However, despite what could be a universal appeal, our field is very homogenous. And that’s too bad, because diversity makes for better science. Good research comes from observations. You notice something about the world, and you wonder why that is. It’s probably reasonable to guess that most members of our field have experienced the world in a similar way due to their similar demographic backgrounds. This similarity in experience presents a problem for research because it makes us miss things. How can assumptions be challenged when no one realizes they are being made? What kind of questions will people from different backgrounds have that current researchers could never think of because they haven’t experienced the world in that way?
So what can we do about it?
Well for one, we can talk about it. I’m no expert in educational policy – I barely have my bachelor’s degree – so any suggestions that I make would be much less informed than those made by people with more experience with the inner workings of academia. People like you, good reader. As researchers, solving problems is our bread and butter, and so I’m sure that collectively we could come up with some pretty great solutions. Other areas do this through a diversity committee, whose job it is to think about these issues. We don’t just have to talk amongst ourselves, it might also be good to reach out to whatever resources your universities have related to improving diversity at the university level, for example, the McNair Scholars program or summer programs geared towards recruiting students from underrepresented minorities. Not only would finding ways to engage with those programs at the university level be a way to convince a wide variety of students that personality research is awesome, it would also be a good way to learn effective recruitment techniques.
Making efforts to prioritize and promote diversity in our field means making efforts to better our field. Demographic shifts do not happen overnight. As we work to foster interest in personality psychology in a more diverse group of undergraduates, we should start to see that translate into more diversity among graduate students, and, eventually, faculty members. It will take time, but I do not believe our efforts will be in vain. In the end, our field will be stronger for it.