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Reflection On Cultural Identity And Biases

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Reflecting on My Cultural Identity and Biases
Self-awareness is a critical skill to hone as a behavioral health worker. Understanding how individual traits, cultural influences, and life experience shape perspective and constantly assessing one's thought processes in order to remain as objective as possible can be difficult but is necessary from an ethical standpoint. A lot of harm can be done if personal bias goes unchecked, intentional or not. This paper will define cultural bias and discusses my personal background, cultural identity, and biases and how they may influence my work.
Cultural Bias
Cultural bias is something that develops over time. First it "points out differences among cultural groups ranging from social values, rules of conduct, taboos, and beliefs, to language, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, and more" (Gilstein, 2016, para. 2). Then it incorporates these judgments into decision making and behavior, resulting in unfair treatment of those viewed as different. Bias can be both explicit and implicit, intentional and unintentional.
The interesting thing about bias is how and why it develops. Often it is rooted in fear and even denial. People are easily intimidated by things that are different, and they are motivated by acceptance. So, sometimes we pretend to be something we are not in order to fit in. The irony in this is that bias may develop against things that are actually a part of our own makeup. If we are honest, it becomes evident that

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