Diversity: Why it’s good for us (Part II)

We're incredibly diverse creatures. At work one might be a psychologist, a butcher, a dentist or dancer. At home a mother or son, father or daughter. We use these identity labels to describe ourselves, and they're chosen to communicate key facets of who we are. This is a defining feature of what makes us "us" - the ability to think about ourselves in many different ways.

Just think for a moment about all the different ways in which you can describe yourself. I am, for example, a psychologist, male, white, young(ish), British and liberal. The wonderfully complex and multifaceted nature of our identities affords us a dazzling mixture of possible selves and, I argue, the capacity to see this potential in others. Tapping into this potential may hold the key to addressing some of the most pressing social issues facing the world today: discrimination on the basis of one's race, gender, age, sexuality or religion (see Part I of this blog).

Incorporating tasks that encourage an appreciation of the diverse nature of identity into social and personal education should help encourage greater tolerance and more harmonious relations between social groups. But it may also help tackle social exclusion in a different form - by freeing up individuals' academic and career potential. A capacity to think of ourselves in many different ways lies at the heart of self-determination, aspiration and innovation, and this is no more evident than in the career choices we make at school, college and beyond. Should one become an engineer, teacher, artist, scientist or banker? Studies have shown us that thinking simplistically about identities can stifle these aspirations and damage confidence.

Take gender: Psychological research has shown that the career and academic choices of women, like those of a range of groups, are influenced by perceived social and cultural expectations - stereotypes. One such stereotype is that women are not as good as men at math. If women believe this stereotype - and regard gender as a defining characteristic of math-based professions - then they may be compelled to avoid these career paths altogether.

Just as an appreciation of the multifaceted nature of identity can discourage us from holding negative stereotypes of others, it can free us from the influence of negative stereotypes on our own behavior. If gender is a source of self-exclusion (for instance, for women contemplating a career as an engineer, solider, banker or priest) then we must encourage the appreciation that gender is just one (albeit misplaced) criterion for entering such domains, and that it is the capacity to see ourselves in a multitude of different ways that is key to self-definition, self-determination and, ultimately, career success.