Work is one of the most significant areas of life where bias can play a significant role. However, it is important to note that most stereotypes do not stem from bad intentions but deeply held, unconscious beliefs. They are formed in the brain over many years as a result of the interaction of various factors, which people often cannot control. Biases can lead to unfair and irrational conclusions about how things should be done and degrade the overall quality of employee performance. Prejudice, stigma, and discrimination in health care, for example, are known to exacerbate injustice and social inequality (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). This paper will identify my chosen major, identify my personal bias and its nature, and analyze strategies to reduce it.
I think I have a bias about people’s weight because I think how fat or thin a person is largely up to them. I think this prejudice is an implicit one because I never talk about it openly. I do not show disdain for people who are too fat or too thin. However, I always keep in mind the idea that problems related to a person’s weight can be easily solved. All it takes is to keep an eye on what constitutes a person’s diet.
My specialty is education in nursing, so my future responsibilities will include training other professionals. It is apparent that since teachers are human beings, too, they undoubtedly have stereotypes. However, spreading these stereotypes to subordinates or students is fraught with a deterioration in the quality of teaching. Those judgments that people have that are not of scientific persuasion should not affect the educational process in any way.
From time to time, everyone falls under the influence of stereotypes. Society creates a certain way of thinking, which a person uses in life, not having experience in some issues. While the templates used are most often useless and do not give the opportunity to correctly perceive situations, to solve specific problems. In the fight against stereotypes, critical thinking development will help. This means checking sources of information, paying attention to one’s own thoughts, and destroying myths by qualitatively checking judgments.
Critical thinking is one of the key skills of the XXI century, allowing people to analyze information, draw conclusions and make decisions based on the analysis. It is also a skill that helps individuals form their own opinions and defend their positions. Due to critical thinking, people become able to see inconsistencies and contradictions. They can screen out inaccurate data and separate facts from their interpretations. Today’s nurse educators must not only be able to perform routine activities well but also be able to make non-standard decisions and find new ways and approaches to solve problems. People who can intelligently conduct a discussion and prove their point of view are highly valued. Critical thinking helps to evaluate work tasks from different sides and helps to avoid mistakes related to inaccuracy or insufficiency of information. The extent to which clinical practice is minimized by bias determines how effectively patients will be treated (Groves et al., 2021). Therefore, the elimination of stereotypes should be the primary goal of nursing educators. I think that doing this assignment made me realize the importance of this kind of fighting prejudice.
References
FitzGerald, C., & Hurst, S. (2017). Implicit bias in healthcare professionals: A systematic review.BMC Medical Ethics, 18(19), 1-18. Web.
Groves, P. S., Bunch, J. L., & Sabin, J. A. (2021). Nurse bias and nursing care disparities related to patient characteristics: A scoping review of the quantitative and qualitative evidence. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 30(23-24), 3385–3397. Web.