Category Archives: Models

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In Praise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

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This administration wanted us to be repelled by values that were honored just days before.

For decades I worked in a professional environment that placed a lot of faith in honoring the ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). For most of my years in college teaching these were part of the catechism of values to make higher education available to as many students and faculty as possible. We wanted more diverse students to choose our program. And we knew in the 70s that more women should be part of the faculty. Living by these standards was not always easy, but evidence of progress was all around us: the positive symbolism of an African American President, a woman taking over as head of the country’s largest automobile maker, and a revolution in the number university presidents, deans and provosts with diverse backgrounds. All were proof that higher education and the managers of innovative groups  everywhere were no longer a monoculture.

Who knew that in a few more years that on January 20th of this year the nation would suddenly be asked to abandon these progressive ideals that made these changes possible, This administration wanted us to be repelled by values honored just days before, not to mention an iconic statue sitting in the harbor in front of Donald Trump’s hometown.

Now, this government is centered on white guys and a few women seemingly selected by Trump for their fashion-magazine looks. I can imagine storage rooms in corporations stacked floor to ceiling with unused copies of employee training materials with titles like Fostering Diversity in the Workplace or The Multicultural Corporation. Could the implicit racism of this destructive change be mitigated if we shifted the language to celebrate “differences,” “fair play” and “cultural variety?”

Positive values can reside in good people, even when their traditional signifiers have been stolen.

When I first heard the pronouncement against DEI–followed so far with the termination of 120,000 federal workers–I thought it was a joke: akin to banning positive expressions about Santa Claus, puppies, or landmark civil rights cases. But the negative reactivity of the new administration is deadly serious and spreading. We know we are on a slippery slope when politicians think they can take ownership of traditionally eulogistic words and simply redefine them as dyslogistic. The mistake of confusing words with thoughts is a fool’s idea of governing, resulting in governments like Florida’s, where language, curricula and books are already censored. Thankfully, positive values can reside in good people, even when their traditional signifiers have been stolen.

This all seems so dystopian and retro. It is no surprise that golf next to a golf cart is the president’s game, or that his wife stays mostly out of sight, or that his country club decorated in the gothic style of Sunset Boulevard (1950) is his preferred setting. Even the temporary co-president of Elon Musk with roots in white South Africa has become an ersatz Norma Desmond who no one wants to see. I expect a new Executive Order may yet come to affirm all of this patriarchy by making Old Spice the official national scent, along with a preferred diet of a sandwich of white meat with mayonnaise on white toast.

In spite of the abundance of pale rich guys milling around the White House, beyond Washington there is a more inclusive representation of talented folks who still sustain so many successful institutions of this country. Thankfully, Emma Lazarus quoted at the base of the Statue of Liberty never imagined that the nation would ‘Deport the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’

Putting a Grand Theory to the Test

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At the Oval Office meeting the President took the opposite position of the one urged by Marco Rubio. Rubio suddenly fell silent. As the Guardian reported, “The image of a sullen Rubio quickly went viral online, with one social media user dubbing him ‘the corpse on the couch.’”

These are challenging times. But for a student of persuasion, the events unfolding within the national government provide a flurry of opportunities to evaluate a core theory of persuasion. Events have conspired to force people to acknowledge the contradictory actions of their leader which, in theory, should force them to resolve the discrepancy. A researcher just needs to notice a person’s apparent discomfort with a world that is suddenly different from what they planned. What will change?

Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance theory hypothesizes that individuals will feel some mental stress if new information presents an apparent inconsistency between two firmly held beliefs, or a belief and a behavior. The theory assumes that the inconsistency will trigger an impulse to reduce or explain away the discrepancy. Although this old and grand theory offers something less than a certain “if-then” result, it is also premised on the familiar psychological motive to resolve apparent contradictions. For example, suppose that you found out that a close friend has been charged with theft of pages from artbooks taken from a local library. If the information disturbs you, would you change your attitude about your friend? A hypothesized result is a new realignment that resolves into more consonant attitudes: perhaps less regard for the friend and a thought that the crime was a small one.  The theory’s original author, Leon Festinger, proposed that cognitive dissonance is the tension that results when two thoughts seem incompatible.

There are many possible  refinements and variations on this model, but even in its simplest form it offers a theory of how our attitudes can change. Festinger was also wise enough to never underestimate our willingness to deny a contradiction.

Consider another example. Imagine that you discovered a distant ancestor in your family-owned slaves before the civil war. How would you feel? Writer Cynthia Carr remembers her shame when she learned that fact about an ancestor. She sought to resolve the resulting dissonance by telling an African American friend. For her, that comment reduced some of the dissonance. On the surface, at least, we want our mental life fit together in a more or less coherent whole.

And so we arrive at this moment in the nation’s fraught politics, considered in a few examples from the human dissonance machines in the White House. It appears that the admired business innovator Elon Musk may have a bit of a fascist streak, as demonstrated in his recent efforts to urge German voters to support a far-right party that has been more accepting of the nation’s Fascist past. Musk’s words were mostly an unwelcome intrusion into German and American politics, made even more so with Hitler-style arm salutes offered at Trump’s inauguration. What gives? The dynamic is the same if a person thought that reducing the costs of everyday goods would be Donald Trump’s top priority, as per the campaign. But his first big push has been to place tariffs on foreign goods coming into the country, which will likely raise prices for Americans. An unwelcome surprise? Similarly, if a person like Rubio thought Vladimir Putin is the true villain/aggressor of the Ukraine war, will they accept the President’s absurd judgment that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is to blame? In the traditional American view, Putin is the anti-Christ and Zelensky is the patriot.

These and other reversals should produce a flood of dissonance for Trump supporters. Should they feel dissonance and buyer’s remorse over owning what demonstrators against Elon Musk are calling Tesla “Swasticars?” Or changing topics, does a daughter’s recent dismissal from her dream job at NOAA increase his dislike of Musk and Trump, who initiated all the massive federal job cuts?

Some politicians can pivot on dime if they are asked to square a circle. Doublespeak is just second-nature. Ask them their favorite color and it is plaid. Marco Rubio entered the last Oval Office meeting as an avid foe of Vladimir Putin and a supporter of Ukraine. By the end of that meeting he sat in silence as the President more or less took the opposite position. And so the image of a sullen Rubio. The fact that a committed belief can be so easily discarded is one reason Congress as a whole is held in such low esteem.

Alternate Paths

As noted, Festinger was savvy and knew that humans could walk a crooked path out of an obvious contradiction. But one final example surprised me. A recent Associated Press report followed a young new hire in the Forest Service who had barely begun her work before she was fired: a result that devastating to her. As she was modeling her new uniform some of her relatives unhelpfully noted that the reduction was probably necessary. They thought she had too many co-workers. The worker was rightfully unprepared for the personal she experienced for privileging the faux urgency of job reductions over dismissal of her own achievement. Dissonance Theory is useful, but when a predicted outcome fails to materialize, it can also point to other factors, like how cruel American life has become.

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Portions of this essay are adapted from the Author's Persuasion and Influence in American Life, Eighth Edition.