Perspectives on Diversity (Politics, Ideologies, Social Justice, & Psychology)

This video marks the beginning of a series of videos focusing on the Psychology of Diversity. In this video specifically, we’ll explore several ways that we can think about diversity. That is, we’ll investigate several different perspectives on-or lenses through which we can look at-diversity.
Diversity: The presence of difference; in psychology, the presence of social differences among people.
Social Differences: Categorical differences between groups of people, organizations, or situations (e.g., “being Christian” vs. “being Jewish”).
Individual Differences: Dimensional differences between people (e.g., how religious Tom is vs. how religious Sally is on a scale of 1 to 10).
Compositional Diversity: The statistical representation of different groups of people within a given environment (e.g., a classroom, an office, the government).
The Melting Pot: An ideological approach to diversity that accepts others’ differences as long as they are devoted to the majority groups’ values and goals.
Multiculturalism: An ideological approach to diversity that promotes the recognition, appreciation, celebration, or preservation of social difference.
Color-Blindness: An ideological approach to diversity that considers people strictly as individuals, ignoring or de-emphasizing racial or ethnic group membership.
Social Equality: Ensuring that all social groups are offered the same (i.e., equal) opportunities; for example, giving everyone in America a stimulus check in the amount of $2,000.
Social Equity: Ensuring that all social groups are offered the same (i.e., equitable) outcomes; for example, giving everyone in America a stimulus check that varies in size based on need.
Psychology of Diversity: The psychological study of how thoughts, feelings, and behavior are intertwined with peoples’ social environments and identities.
Social Perceiver: People are social perceivers in that they perceive and make assumptions about those around them.
Social Actor: People are social actors in that they act on their environments, thereby influencing those around them.