Interracial Communication - The Key Source of Pitfalls, Obstacles & Traps

"Like a pane of glass framing and subtly distorting our vision, mental models determine what we see." --Peter Senge

Mental Models

In order to understand where things go wrong in interracial communication, we first need to understand what Mental Models are.

The term "mental models" was first coined by Scottish psychologist Kenneth Craik in the 1940s. He defined them as psychological representations of reality. As such, mental models are the source of the powerful images, assumptions, and stories we hold about people and cultures. Established by past events, experiences, or teachings, they serve, going forward, as filters through which we see, interpret, and respond to the world--limiting us to familiar ways of thinking and behaving.

Unfortunately, mental models serve as the prime vehicle by which prejudice, stereotypes and social hierarchies get passed down from one generation to another.

On the other hand, the good news is that mental models have the potential to evolve, and they often do with the help of new learning and experiences and interaction with new individuals and environments.

Mental models play a powerful role in shaping what we see and hear, what we feel, and what we do.

Mental Models & Communicating Across Racial Difference

Mental models influence what we see and hear, as they determine what information we pay attention to and what information we take in. Two types of perception error follow:

The first is Top-down bias, which is the tendency to allow existing "knowledge" (i.e. stereotypes, assumptions about other people) to inhibit the acquisition of new information, and to preserve biased thoughts and actions. Top-down bias is in effect whenever someone assumes that you must like rap music just because you're a person of color, or, that you don't know what it's like to suffer social ostracism just because you're white. In both scenarios, such assumptions, whether verbalized or unspoken, carry great potential for shaping our actions and resulting in misunderstanding and tension.

The second is Confirmation bias, which is the tendency to seek evidence that confirms original beliefs and ignore evidence that doesn't. Confirmation bias is in effect when you continue to say that all blacks are unmotivated and unintelligent, although the CEO who turned your company around is black, or, when you decide that the new white president of your university's multicultural group is racist after all, just because you see them chatting at lunchtime with a homogenous group of other whites. Mental models are powerful because they shape our emotions (e.g. feeling fearful when we encounter a young black man on a lonely street) and determine our actions.

A more generalized example of this might be the following: If we believe that people are basically good, we might be more inclined to be nice to strangers, feel happy engaging with others, trust our neighbors, leave our doors unlocked, and be more social. Yet, if we believe people are fundamentally evil, we may be more inclined to lock our doors tight, be wary of and nervous around strangers, take a long time to trust others, and surround ourselves with a very small circle of friends.

The danger is this: powerful mental models determine our experiences and in doing so, they perpetuate themselves; mental models also explain how two people can have two completely different experiences with the same situation, or with the same group of people.

Bottom line: it is important to understand that how you approach something (with both your mindset and actions) has everything to do with how you'll experience it.

The Many Challenges with Mental Models

The challenges that mental models present are significant, especially in relation to intercultural/interracial communication.

• Aside from being self-perpetuating, they are also most often invisible to us - leading us to think our ideas are based on truth and fact, rather than distorted truths, misguided assumptions, and narrow stereotypes; if we don't recognize their influence, then we can't question or alter them.
  
  
• They interfere with our ability to see the world in new and different ways and to identify and integrate new information - in other words, to learn.
  
  
• They often take the form of deeply held, yet unfounded assumptions or beliefs about others.
  
  
• They serve as powerful vehicles for the perpetuation of stereotypes from one generation to the next.

Article contines with "The Subtleties of Mental Models in Interracial Communication"...