Perception in Public Administration

 

 

Emotional intelligence has been one of the faster-growing conceptualizations in social science since the 1990s. Research shows that the scientific development of emotional intelligence as a tool to drive thinking, behavior, and performance is an essential skill to have and manage. In the world we are currently living, fulfilled with a multigenerational culture, societies currently affected by drastic socioeconomic and sociopolitical changes, a pandemic, and workplaces culture on a fast-racetrack to embrace virtual workplaces environments, emotional intelligence is a set of essential skills to help us deal with the uncertainty and insecurities of changes.

 

Public administrators are civil service employees. They are employed by the government of the United States—local, state, or federal government, and for the most part, their salary is paid by taxpayers’ money. Their responsibility is not only toward the government, but also the community. Because of the nature of public service employment, civil servants' behavior and actions are frequently and closely scrutinized by the public. More so as public servants moved into virtual environments. Those are external factors adding to already organically stressful situations.

 

How can public servants manage the stress and pressure of dealing with public scrutiny in a constantly changing society and workplace environments? The answer should be simple: do what is right, honorably, and ethically appropriate for you and your community. However, the problem of doing what is right, honorably, morally, and ethically appropriate for the public and the community relies on a proficiency that is extremely subjective to the perception of each individual.

 

The problem with perception is that it is a cognitive trait in which the human mind is set on a conscious state based on events that induce a perceptual awareness. That perception is not always aligned with the reality of the facts. This type of behavior is also referred to as situational behavior. In emotional intelligence, one’s perception is deeply influenced by the information found in our environment. The way we perceive that information and how we accurately identify such information has the greatest impact on how we use that information to communicate with others, make decisions, and solve problems. Likewise, that information is essential when right, honorably, and ethically appropriate. Information is subjective, and that subjectivity is open to the interpretation of one's perception.

 

For a public service servant, to do what is right—by the general and consensual law of social behavior—it takes transparency, awareness, and adaptability. Doing what is right, honorably, morally, and ethically appropriate has nothing to do with one’s perception, and all to do with the logical and reasonable sequence of facts. Those are proficiencies cognitively attached to transparency and awareness. Those are proficiencies closely related to openness relating to other people, the things we do, and the little efforts of making a good impression under one person’s perception. Those proficiencies make you invisible to certain compromising situations, as one will not hide behind others' wrongful and inappropriate actions. On this matter, research shows that "Transparency is normally defined as the thesis that reflection on, or introspection of, what it is like to have experience does not reveal that we are aware of experiences themselves, but only of their mind-independent objects.” Another factor influencing those cognitive characteristics is awareness.

 

Awareness is the perception and knowledge of an action that generates some form of information. Awareness is the accurate “reportability of something perceived or known widely used as a behavioral index of conscious awareness.” It is that awareness that gives us the perceptual acceptance of experience. It gives us a “perceptual awareness of ordinary mind-independent objects.” In emotional intelligence, awareness involves recognizing and understanding our environment. Awareness is the ability to perceive, understand, and differentiate between the subtleties of our own perception, the reality of the world around us. Awareness involves putting your perception to the side while being mindful and observant of the transparency and clearness of the facts, the source of information, and the impact that such information has on our actions. It is the ability to recognize and understand what is right, honorably, and ethically appropriate for all members of our society--equally, impartially, and correspondingly. 

 

Adapting to radical social changes takes time. Learning how to do what is right, honorably, and ethically appropriate, even in a virtual environment, takes longer. It takes learning to differentiate and set apart the cognitive difference of one’s perception, and the reality of the facts, even when one does not agree with such facts, “For we think of an illusion as any perceptual situation in which a physical object is actually perceived, but in which that object perceptually appears other than it really is.” Remember that your perception is influenced by your background, personality, education, socioeconomic status, personality, moods, and emotions. When analyzing the facts of any given situation, be sure to do a self-reality check and identify how the factors mentioned above are influencing your own perception. After, do a process of elimination. It will help you clearly understand the facts of any given situation and help you align what is right, honorably, morally, and ethically appropriate with the reality of the facts.

 

Iberkis Faltas

Public Policy and Administration

Management & Leadership | Law and Policy

Emotional Intelligence Psychometrician.

Social Media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/iberkisfaltas/

Instagram: @emotionalintelligence4

Gender Stereotyping: Let’s Begin by Changing the Minds of Our Youth

Gender-based parental restrictions and a passive gender stereotyping that seemed to have started in the family-nucleus has made its way to our societies, provoking an unintended negative effect on the way that many women feel in our society.  

One of the many words that have a dislike effect on women is stereotyping women as a “minority” group. Especially when many times, the word minority has been used without the intellectual significance or origin of the world. While many in our society use to label women as a minority group, it has been conveniently interchangeably. The unmistakable true is that the word minority refers to social groups that “cannot engage and is not regarded as capable of engaging, the majority in a creative and constant dialogue,”[i] which women have countless demonstrated they are not.   

What does it mean for women?

It means that women have been stereotyped with subjective and objective discriminations, allegedly powerless characteristics, labeling women as “subordinated” members of our societies.[ii] Unfortunately, modern societies are engraved with the sociocultural patterns of normative behavior that persuades and encourages women to feel like a minority group in our society. Well, I am resistant to believe that we cannot change the fact that women still feel chronically less powerful than men. While it seems almost impossible to change our core-culture, the key word here is “almost.” I think we can start making a real difference if we start changing the culture of new generations at home. 

Through restrictive culturalism, I argue that the unconscious biases and preconceived distinctions that we found in our own cultural settings are cognitively linked to our distinctive family nucleus. Many moons ago, Polish-American Philosopher and Sociologist Florian Znaniecki (1919) explored the comprehensive framework grounding the foundation and meaning of culturalism. Znaniecki suggested that culturalism was “constructed on the ground of the implicit or explicit presuppositions involved in reflection about cultural phenomena.” Nuclear culturalism is a phenomenon that has unexpected intentions and sometimes, unwanted meanings. How many of us have heard in our family-nucleus, at least once someone said phrases such as, “only boys—or girls—can do that!” or “that’s not for boys—or girls!” or “you are not a boy—or a girl to do that,” without thinking that we might be starting some form of social restrictions.  

Culturalism explores the agglomerate habits and traditions forming our human’s affairs. It centralizes our social nucleus, straightening bonds, and systems of shared values, including common territories, religion, language, descent, cultural traditions, economic interest, and political idealism.[iii] As members of our social groups, we create connections through sharing a collective consciousness, similar values, emotional attitudes, sentiments, desires, traditions, knowledge, and moral values.[iv]  While within our cultures, may of our thinking and behaviors are culturally similar, there is no mistake that we still have “undeniably problems with culturalism” that can trap us into preconceived manifestations of common tendencies, limited determinism, and the essentialism of our cultural traits.[v] 

Cultural restrictions enforce social, professional, and personal limitations. The conceptualization of restrictiveness was found in the work of many scholars who explained that restrictiveness was expected in the common cognitive behavior originated on specific social environments.[vi] In many societies, cultural restrictions and cultural taboos limit the expansion of women’s knowledge, discouraging women from speaking in public, vocalizing their ideas and needs, restricting women’s socioeconomic mobility, and other fundamental needs, such as access to public health.[vii] A patriarchally or matriarchally accepted philosophy behind cultural restrictions may explain the constructions that initiate gender distinctions, inducing the enforcement of boundaries and limitations, based on the preconception of social representations.[viii]  

A great deal of research has shown that women’s cultural restrictions are predominant, influencing women’s conduct, social behavior, and their quality of life. Many have suggested that women internalized social norms, due to lack of perceived alternatives, provide a sense of limitations that ground the basis of women’s cultural restrictions.[ix] Family barriers and negative attitudes that hinder women’s empowerment, frequently limiting the support women need to success starts at home. My argument is that there is a cognitive likelihood that a gender-based parental restrictive multiculturalism and the constant socially stereotyping have an unintended effect on women’s feeling of powerlessness. 

I interviewed more than 120 women from diverse cultural backgrounds, family origins, professional backgrounds, educational levels, sexual preferences, financial stability, different generations, conservatives, and modernistic. I asked each woman the same question: Why would you think a woman would feel chronically less powerful than men? I found that restrictive multiculturalism has a negative effect on the socioeconomic and sociopolitical development of women in American societies. Social restrictions against women not only have an adverse impact fon women’s advancement in the workplace, but also on women’s perception, mindset, and personal growth. Unfortunately, social and cultural gender-based restrictions seem to have set the boundaries for women’s social and professional failures. While many women believed that there are many social factors influencing women’s feeling of powerlessness, within my interviewees, there was a unanimous consensus that women’s feeling of chronical powerlessness was a cognitive, organic issue that most likely started at home. Their first life lesson included many social and cultural taboos, from playing with gender-specific, sometimes stereotyped toys, to the resentment fallacy that women are physical, intellectually, and occasionally endurance-based emotionally less capable than men just because of the nature of being a woman. 

Family gender predisposition seems to be embedded in women and men since childhood. Family restrictions based on preconceived social demarcations seems common norms in all societies. What may appear to be an insignificant gender distinction in the family nucleus, frequently it can turn into a mentally restrictive gender stereotype, which is a problem commonly found at the family core in most cultures.[x] For example, some scholars believe that society in general, including parents, “accurately apply common gender stereotypes to toys, by the time they [the children] are three and readily predict their parents’ opinions about gender-typical and cross-gender play.”[xi] Many studies also showed that gender stereotyping, and differential vulnerabilities start during infancy, derives from parents, and most likely continue as an adult.[xii]

In some cultures, from childhood, women are denied the opportunity for development, inheriting their “mother’s disadvantages” during womanhood, including lack of education, illiteracy, and ignorance.[xiii]  

It is the responsibility of new generations to start making changes in the way that family culture stereotype children, specifically, women. Women are physically and mentally capable of enduring the same challenges as the opposite gender.  But first, women have to believe that they are as powerful as men. “Behaviour is not only the product of rational, deliberative and individual evaluation. It is also based on habit and cultural tradition, emotional impulses, the influence of family and friends and social norms as well as wider trends.”[xiv] Culture, belief, and traditions are passed from parental figures to childhood, into adulthood. Gender-specific culture is also transferred and perpetuated into adulthood.[xv] 

Cultural restrictions based on gender-specific limitations must stop.

The social constructivism associated with learning theories, knowledge structure, and social interactions show that common cross-cultural learning patterns, mirroring gender stereotyping, and gender discrimination during childhood learning is carried into adulthood and social stream. Cultural restrictions based on gender-specifics should not be implied in the mind of the children. The moral values, cultural traditions, social ethics, stereotyping, bias, judgments, and gender-difference seems to be passively transmitted to our children. Family restrictive culture seems to be one a relevant, influential factor on women’s feeling of powerlessness.

Social stereotyping, profiling and gender-labeling status are likely to have an adverse effect on women’s feeling of powerlessness, as well as in women’s professional and personal development.

Many of those cultural feelings are carried-on in the workplace with the mindset that what we hear is what we believe. Those cultural restrictions not only have a damaging effect on women’s empowerment, but those restrictions also contribute to professional inequality and gender gap issues. 

The time to start changing the mentality of future generations is now. At home.

Societies are changing and so should we. Women, as well as men, need to reset their mental approach to gender to completely comprehend that cultural changes require common collective and cooperative social strategies.[xvi] Now is the time to start changing the mind of our children. Let imprint in our kids an “equality-mentality” and a “gender-neutral approach” to future professional development. Now is the time to stop vandalizing our gender-based culturalism and stop thinking about any social group as a “minority group.” Now is the time to stop gender stereotyping, along with the sociocultural restriction that limits the personal and professional parameters of women in our society. We, together are one cross-functional social team where each gender has a unique characteristic essential for the growth and development of societies around the world. Let begin by re-setting our minds. Let start by respecting and appreciating each other, regardless of the gender, as an important member of our society.

Iberkis Faltas

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[i] Addis, A. (1991). Individualism, communitarianism, and the rights of ethnic minorities. Notre Dame L. Rev., 67(3), 615-676

[ii] (Addis, 1991)

Christiano, T. (2015). Democracy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/democracy/

Hacker, H. M. (1951). Women as a minority group. Social Forces, 30(1), 60–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2571742

Prati, G., Marín Puchades, V., & Pietrantoni, L. (2017). Cyclists as a minority group? Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 47, 34-41. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2017.04.008

Song, S. (2017). Multiculturalism.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.) (Spring 2017). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/multiculturalism.

[iii] Barker, C. (2004). The SAGE dictionary of cultural studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc. & Znaniecki, F. (1939). Social groups as products of participating individuals. American Journal Of Sociology, 44(6), 799-811.

[iv] (Znaniecki, 1935)

[v] Chemla, K., & Fox, E. F., (2017) (Eds.) Culture without culturalism: The making of scientific knowledge. Durham, NC: Duke University Press

[vi] Garritson, S. (1987). Characteristics of restrictiveness management of the mentally ill. Journal Of Psychosocial Nursing & Mental Health Services, 25(1), 10-43.

[vii] Harchandani, N. (2012). Oral health challenges in Pakistan and approaches to these problems. Pakistan Oral & Dental Journal, 32(3), 497-501.

Jewitt, S. (2000). Unequal knowledges in Jharkhand, India: De-romanticizing women's agroecological expertise. Development & Change, 31(5). Retrieved from www.ebscohost.com.

MacKian, S. C. (2008). What the papers say: Reading therapeutic landscapes of women's health and empowerment in Uganda. Health & place, 14(1), 106-115.

[viii] Gentile, F. R. (2017). Marketing the talented tenth: WEB Du Bois and public-intellectual economies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 47(2), 131-157.

[ix] Wilkens, E. A. (1997). A gender analysis of perceived quality of life: some theoretical and methodological observations from villages in the Garhwal, India. University of Calgary. Retrieved from http://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/1880/26913/1/24629Wilkens.pdf

[x] Campenni, C. E. (1999). Gender stereotyping of children's toys: A comparison of parents and nonparents. Sex Roles, 40(1-2), 121-138.

[xi] Freeman, N. K. (2007). Preschoolers’ perceptions of gender appropriate toys and their parents’ beliefs about genderized behaviors: Miscommunication, mixed messages, or hidden truths?. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(5), 357-366.

[xii] Wood, Desmarais, & Gugula, 2002). Sheeber, L., Davis, B., & Hops, H. (2002). Gender-specific vulnerability to depression in children of depressed mothers. Children of depressed parents: Mechanisms of risk and implications for treatment, 253-274. Retrieved from www.researchgate.net

Wood, E., Desmarais, S., & Gugula, S. (2002). The impact of parenting experience on gender stereotyped toy play of children. Sex Roles, 47(1-2), 39-49

[xiii] Abioye, T. (1999). Examining the mass literacy programme in Zaria local government area of Kaduna state implications for women empowerment. A Journal of the Reading Association of Nigeria. 8(1 & 2), 201-213.

[xiv] Uzzell, D., & Räthzel, N. (2009). Transforming environmental psychology. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29(3), 340-350. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.11.005

[xv] Chamlee, E. (1993). Indigenous African institutions and economic development. CATO Journal, 13(1), 79.

[xvi] AlSaqer, L. (2008). Experience of female public relations practitioners in Bahrain. Public Relations Review, 34(1), 77-79.

My Friend Was Raped: Now What?

This is a true story. It did not happen to me, but it happened to a dear friend.

I am sharing her story because I believe our society as whole, has the responsibility to help and protect everyone who has been a victim of a sexual assault.

An early evening, a young lady left a bar where she was enjoying a couple drinks with friends. I will call her “Margi”.

Margi walked out of the bar laughing, appreciating live as most 25 years-old women would do. She was thinking about tomorrow. She was making plans for her future. As she walked under the moon, a few steps away from the bar, a demonic hand pulled her into the seventh circle of hell. In a split of second, she went from a normal life, to a meeting with evil, face to face. She was raped.

She screamed. She fought. She resisted her attacker knowing that her life depended on it. She continued screaming until her throat burned, scorched by her cries. But her petrifying cries were interrupted by something bigger, something darker, capable of causing harms beyond belief. She was forced to fight death to remain alive.

What is left after burning in hell?

Margi was consumed by rage. Her skin burned to the bones. She was in unimaginable pain. There was not a single cell in her body that did not hurt. She felt as if every nerve in her body was simply destroyed. She felt her world collapsing right at her side, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. She dialed 911.

Only another person who has been forcibly raped can identify the pain, the hurt, the agony, the anguish, the torment, and the suffering that is felt after a horrifying sexual assault. The rest of us can only imagine it. Even so, what we feel and what the victims feel would never be the same. All we can do is provide them with emotional support and personal space for them to grieve. Margi called 911 because she needed help. She was bleeding. She was bruised and badly hurt, not only physically, but more so emotionally.

The guilt.

After a person have been raped, the victim is hunted by one question: Was the sexual assault my fault?

No Margi, the sexual assault was not your fault. 

I am writing this statement with clear and absolute convention that the sexual assault was not your fault. There should not be one victim on this earth who should believe that being raped or sexually assaulted is her or his fault. No one victim should feel guilty for being forcefully raped. Rape is an act of evil and we all should stand and fight against sexual assaults.

It does not matter if the rape was done by someone you know, someone closed to you, someone dear to your heart, or by a complete stranger. Being raped is never the victims fault. Rape is an unlawful, dreadful, awful action committed against you, without your consent. The most important words that you should keep in your mind are, if you did not consent to the sexual action, it was a sexual assault, and therefore, it was not your fault. It was the fault of evil.

It’s been a couple months since she was raped. The physical pain left behind after she was raped is gone. But her soul is damaged forever. Being raped is something that Margi has to learn to deal with. However, it is the guilt of being raped that is killing her. The guilt takes her to darker places where she feels she is drowning alone. Thinking that the sexual assault was her fault. Making her life a living hell.

After Margi called 911, a police officer showed up at the crime scene. While she was grateful for the much-needed physical support, Margi still battles the emotional damage caused by the first responder. The police officer who suggested that the sexual assault was her fault. That subtle underlying accusation destroyed what was left of her confidence, dignity, self-respect, and self-esteem.

Police officers responding to a sexual assault crime scene must remember that first, the victim of a sexual assault is a human being who has been deprived of her/his dignity. Second, “One of the most sacred principles in the American criminal justice system, holding that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. In other words, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, each essential element of the crime charged.” (Cornell Law School, 2017). 

A police officer responding to the cries of the victims of a sexual assault should never make the victims feel that the sexual attack was their fault. I highly recommend that any police officer who responds to the desperate call of the victim of a sexual assault to be first human and then become an investigator. Making the victims feel the sexual assault was their fault may cause deeper damage than the physical ones. Those subtle accusations can brand the victims’ soul for the rest of their lives and almost certainly interfere with the victims’ ability to recover from their traumatic experience. 

Some of the skills that the victims of sexual assault need from the police officers responding to their desperate cries for need and help are respect, compassion, understanding, calmness, discretion, dependence, perception, empathic, tolerance, humility, open-mindedness, non-impulsiveness, patient, reasoning, and strong work ethics.

I respect and appreciate the dangerous work of police officers. I understand it is a stressful job and they are constantly putting their lives on the line to prevent us from danger and harm. I thank all of you for protecting us, protecting our society, and promoting peace and security. 

At the same time, I also have the moral responsibility to remind all police officers that there is time to be human, there is time to be a hero, and there is time to be an investigator. Responding to the call of a victim of a sexual assault is the time to be human. Margi was already hurt. She did not need your accusations. At that particular moment, what she needed the most was your moral support and your protection.

Margi had unforgettable damage to her self-esteem, self-respect, morale, and trust of people. But she is still recovering. She still is a strong, beautiful special woman. Your family and friends love you unconditionally.

Iberkis Faltas, MSIA, PhD (ABD)

Sources:

Key Traits and Characteristics Sought in Police Officers. (2012). City of Bainbridge Island. Retrieved from http://www.bainbridgewa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1834

Presumption of Innocence. (2017). Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/presumption_of_innocence

Statement Analysis: Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber

This statement has 247 words, 18 lines, 1385 spaced characters, and 1631 non-spaced characters. Approximately 20% of the paragraph are adjectives, 25% verbs, 46% nouns, 7% adverbs, and 49% functions words, which according to research, functions words are words that provide little lexical significance or have little ambiguity to the meaning its meaning or the sentence.

The word count showed that James’s most used word was women, writing it 12 times in one paragraph. “Women” count for a 7.59 % of the paragraph structure. This, according to research on language and words usage indicates that James might have additional personal issues with the opposite gender than those expressed in this paragraph. Additional studies are required to determine the nature and extent of those issues. See Figure 1 Word Cloud, and Table 1 Word Weight Percentage for a broader idea of the structure and word use in this paragraph. 

Additional analysis indicates that only a 15.81% of the words imply to the content of the paragraph. James used too many ‘big words’ which research shows it is a self-conscious way of expression and in many situations, it indicates that the person has social/workplace issues due to the nature of his/her behavior.

James used 53 words to explain why he perceived that women prefer their professional development in social and artistic areas, which according to the Department of Labor (2017) it is not true. His argument is debatable. See the table below. In fact, statistics show that men also favor arts as their professional fields, as much or maybe more than women. Also, line and six of the statement, the ones highlighted in pink, those are two standalone sentences. Line eight explains James’s perceived assumption and judgment. Lines nine and ten contradict themselves: “Note that these are just average differences (on what is he basing this average?), and there’s overlap between men and women (I would like more information on where what, or how men and women overlap before making an assessment) but this seen “solely as a women’s issue” (By the end of the sentence it is not an overlap anymore. Now is just a women’s issue?)

For lines 13, 14, and 15, highlighted in pink, I would suggest requesting more information to determine its validity. Lines 17 and 18, also highlighted in pink are also debatable. Academic research showed that there are no significant gender-specific differences associated with personality or emotions between men and women.

Further, emotional intelligence research also showed that there is not gender-specific difference defining the individuals’ emotional intelligence competencies, or the way that individuals manage their emotions.

According to the evaluation of this statement, James “needs to stop assuming that gender gap implies sexism” and evaluate his own perception of the overall situation. How is it affecting him? How responsible is James of his own situation? What is bothering the most? How emotionally aware is James? How satisfy is James with his choices? Is James suffering from some form of depression? Does James feel that he is not advancing enough in his professional environment? Those are questions that will help us to explore the motivations behind James’s manifesto.

Moreover, according to research, the gender gap is an existing cultural problem. However, it is less likely that the gender gap is directly associated with racism against sex or sexism which is an entirely different topic. See Figure 3 Pew Research Center for additional information on the gender gap.

Word Cloud 

Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber

 

 Data by Area and Occupation

DHS S&T Awards $645K to Northeastern University to Develop Systems for Auditing and Controlling Personal Information Leaks

WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has awarded Northeastern University (NEU) $645,229 to develop a system that organizations and individuals can use to audit and control personally identifiable information (PII) leaks from connected devices. The award was made through the S&T Cyber Security Division’s (CSD) Data Privacy project. CSD is part of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. CSD’s Data Privacy project seeks architectures, tools, applied models and other solutions across the research-and-development (R&D) lifecycle along three primary contexts: connected devices, mobile computing and sensor platforms; large-scale and heterogeneous data and algorithms; and the delivery of digital services.


Read More: https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2017/08/07/news-release-dhs-st-awards-645k-northeastern-university

Statement Analysis

We can apply statement analysis to any documents. A VP of a magazine wrote the below statement. I couldn’t resist to review the statement and provide my recommendations on what should not be done in a statement letter when it will target millions of people. My suggestions are not perfect, but it is a start.

Le gustaria participar en un estudio para el cresimiento professional de la mujer?

Estoy conduciendo un estrudio academico de los factores cognitivos y no cognitivos que podrían influir en que las mujeres se sientan crónicamente menos poderosas que los hombres. Este problema es una cuestión socioeconómica relevante que afecta al desarrollo de las mujeres en las sociedades actuales. Para explorar este tema, necesito entrevistar a varias personas. La entrevista es diez minutos y se puede conducir por teléfono, correo electrónico, o cara a cara si se encuentra en un estado cercano a NJ. Por favor envíeme un mensaje si le gustaria participar en este projecto: iberkisfaltas@gmail.com

Call for participation in research study

Hello everyone,

I am conducting a research study on the cognitive and non-cognitive factors that could influence women to feel chronically less powerful than men. It is a relevant socioeconomic issue affecting women’s development in current societies. To explore this issue, I need to interview multiple people. The interview is a ten-minute interview that can be conducted via phone, email, or face-to-face if located in a state close to NJ. Please send me a message if you would like to participate: iberkisfaltas@gmail.com

Thank you

When Are Medical Doctors Dehumanized Becoming Automated Machines?

Medical doctors, psychologist, attorney of law, social workers, counselors, police officers, education, nurse, public and customer service, management, and leadership are some of the professional fields that need the most emotionally intelligent individuals. Each has a very challenging road that comes with each territory. Those fields deal with perceived critical issues, relevant to each particular individual. Those issues might not be important for the rest of the word, but those issues are important for them. 

Some of the most important emotional intelligence skills that must be mastered by the individuals working in the fields mentioned above are self-awareness, self-management, empathy, social responsibility, impulse control, flexibility, stress tolerance, optimism, perceiving emotions, understanding emotions, and using emotions—theirs or other’s—either to facilitate thoughts, judgements, and actions, or just to understand the needs of others. Note that one of the fields that I mentioned was the medical doctor. This particular field is one where individuals should never—ever—lose their emotional intelligence skills and abilities.

So, when doctors become dehumanized and transform into automated machines?

I accompanied my son to the doctor office, and the interaction with the doctor on duty put me on the verge of a madness-schizophrenic attack. I was so aggravated that I felt the blood rushing to my face, a mental block, and my heart pumping blood faster, and faster. A good thing that I am self-aware of my emotions because when I realized that I was about to lose my composure, I decided to walk away for couple seconds, breath, and recharge on self-control.

At this point, I am just thankful that I made it out of the doctor's office without a straightjacket or worse, on handcuffs. It was one of those doctor's office visit that instead of making everything better, it seems that they are on a witch-hunt to test your patient and sanity.

It started when my son called me and told me he was having chest pain. That information, coming from one of my three boys means a real emergency. My kids don’t complain about anything and have the habit of minimizing everything. So, when my child told me that he wanted to go to the doctor because he was having chest pain, I imagined the worst.

I left work immediately. I was also texting him every minute or two while on the train. The fact that he was texting me back told me that things weren’t as bad as I thought. Also, he walked himself to the doctor, which was also an indicator that things weren’t a real emergency. Still, he had chest pain, and that was the information hijacking the amygdala in the temporal lobes of my brain. My 24-year-old child had chest pain, and I needed to know why. 

Well, the doctor found a mass inside his chest. Now, imagine how an overly overprotected mother, attached to her kids like the vines to the wall felt about this “mass” in her child’s chest. I was petrified, scare, and thinking the worse. By the time I made it home, his girlfriend had taken him to get an ultrasound. Because my brain was focusing on the worst, I missed my train stop. By the time I made it home, they were done with the ultrasound, and a half-hour later, they were home. Now, it was a waiting game.

On Monday morning, I called the doctor’s office to make an appointment so we can find out about the results. The lovely lady on the phone told me that yes, the results were in but there was no appointment available until Friday. So, we had to wait until Friday—eight days later—to find out what was this “mass” on my son’s chest.

Friday, we get there early, my son, his girlfriend, and I. The doctor was not in the office, which is perfectly acceptable. A half hour later, the doctor still not in the office. One of the Medical's assistant told me that the doctor was running late—which was also fine. The most important were that the doctor was on the way.

Fifty-five minutes later, I asked if there was another doctor that could look at the results and tell me what was going on with my son. The Medical's assistant said yes, there was another doctor in the office, but she already had a patient. The medical assistant did me the favor of speaking with the other doctor, and she agreed to see my son when she finished with her current patient. Well, one hour and twenty minutes later, after she finished with her patient, she also took a well-deserved extra amount of time to talk, joke, and laugh out loud with others in the office while I waited inside one of the waiting rooms for her.

One hour forty-five minutes later, the Medical's assistant came in, asking my son where was the pain, if he still had the pain, if the pain was the same as it was last Friday, or if the pain got any better, and so on. The medical assistant seemed to be doing what I assumed was a “pre-consulting.” Mind, that was about one-hour and forty minutes after the routine blood-pressure measurement, weight, temperature, and the routine welcoming was completed.  I looked at her puzzled and a little confused. I did not want to think that it was the doctor who sent her to ask all those questions. I really did not want to think about it.

Unfortunately, I was right.

Almost two hours later, after I went off on the arrogance of the doctor, their careless attitude, their insensitiveness, their mighty arrogance, and so on, the one doctor on duty finally walked in the room. Mind that I was waiting for two hours. So, the doctor walked in with computer in hands, head in the computer, no eye contact, no hello, asking the mechanicalized “how are you?” to the walls of the rooms, not waiting for an answer, and without looking at him, or me, or anyone else in the room.
She just looked at her computer. The "how are you?" might as well had been directed to the computer. Silly me thinking it meant to one of us.

After two hours of aggravating wait. After a lovely $$$$ insurance co-pay, a careless doctor, a mechanicalized automated doctor, who would not look patients in the eye, the doctor told me that my son’s ultrasound needed to be redone because he moved.

Of course, he moved!! Getting an ultrasound means to put pressure on a “mass” inside your chest. Of course, it will very likely hurt. So, moving should have been expected. I do not need a medical degree to figurate that one out. So, the whole process had to start from 0-point.

This visit was my second encounter with this medical practitioner. Any of it by choice. The first time, I had an appointment at the same private practice, my regular doctor was sick. The office staff did not tell me until I was there. Since I was already there and I was scheduled to travel out of the country the next day, and this doctor was the only one available, I took it. During this visit, the doctor did the same as with my soon. The doctor walked into the room, for the first time, with a computer in hands and the head in the computer, not looking at me.

For the whole six minutes that the consult when on, the doctor did not make eye contact once. The doctor just asked, asked, and asked routine questions, and gave me a prescription for medication. At this point, I did not trust to take the medication because I wasn't sure the doctor listened to a word I said. The doctor did not ask my name to confirm if I was the same individual in from her computer or showed any empathy about anything. It was kind of aggravating.

So, this time, my son made the appointment with this doctor because it was the only one available. I know my son is a grown man. I know I should not be involved in his doctors' appointments. I also know he can handle this situation on its own. I also know that most twenty-four years old adults are too busy with their lives, and most of the times, their priority do not include their health. I was just glad I was there to realized that some doctors do get dehumanized and become automatized machines.

At what point doctors--or any professional--become dehumanized, automatizing their behavior and responses to others?

We all go to the doctor mostly because something with our health is not functioning properly.  Our health, the health of our children, and the health of our family are probably few of the most important, sensitive, and meaningful topics for many of us. We also go to the doctor for hope, assurance, and comfort that things are going to be okay.

Getting sick scare the hell out of me. When I am sick—which most of the time comes along some sentimentalism, feeling of loneliness, need for empathy, and the need of someone who understands what I am feeling, and what I am going through—what I need is someone to listen and understand what I am feeling. Of course, I also need someone to tell me what is wrong with my health and how we can make it better.

Having a professional who understands how I am feeling, someone that will look straight in the eyes, and ask me a meaningful “how are you? What’s going on?” maybe with a smile—which is not required but it means a whole world of difference, give me a great deal of comfort.

What happened with those doctors that were part of our life, a member of our family? Those doctors that took care of the whole family and us? The doctor that knew everyone by the first name and showed that we actually meant something to them? Those doctors that gave us support felt empathy and gave us a pat on the back as a gesture of praise, approval, and moral support when we needed it the most. What happened to human doctors?

Unfortunately, time is not to blame. Research showed that long before now, doctors were required to spend a specific amount of time with their patients. Just to give you an idea, in the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, there was an article written by Doctors Dugdale, Epstein, and Pantilat (1999) that showed that long before the 80s, the median time for a doctor’s visit was between 5 to 8 minutes in Great Britain, and 10 to 18 minutes in the United States. While relatively, the doctor to patient time has not changed much, research also showed that patient to doctor satisfaction has.

Most doctors seem to be automatized machines. They walk into a waiting room with a computer in their hands and their heads inside the computers, caring more for the time and bills, payments than the patients who are supporting their bills. Some doctors don’t care about building a relationship with their patients. Others doctors do not have time to build rapport. These days, doctors do not get pay for these types of banalities. While many doctors seem to be worshiping the demands of their insurance companies, others can careless for what their patients are feeling. What everyone seems to be forgetting is that the doctor who does not build a stable clientele would almost certainly never have a stable practice. If doctor does not care for their patients, the patients will come and go, without providing them the stability, they need to build the foundation for a stable career.

Yes, insurance companies demand doctors to see their patients in a humiliating short amount of time. I understand it. It is up to the doctor to stand for what they believe and for what they are passionate about.

I am not a doctor in the medical field. But I always had the idea that doctors were doctors because they loved what they did. Doctor loved to make people feel better. They love to safe lives. Doctors love to make a difference.

When choosing a field of study, doctors knew the demands of the profession. Doctors knew the stress and pressure that comes with the glorification of being a doctor. Then, why not doing everything you can to stay human. Caring for others is a beautiful thing, and most likely, that is why you choose this field.

As an emotional intelligence professional these are my suggestions:

• Learning self-awareness will help you to understand your strengths and weaknesses
• Learning self-management will help you to control our moods, manage your emotions, focus on your achievements, and help you to have a positive outlook, even when you think things are in its worse
• Learning empathy is a must. Learning empathy will also teach you to recognize, understand, and appreciate how you and other people are feeling while using those emotions to drive behavior
• Learning social responsibilities will help you to re-emphasize your positive contributions to society
• Learning impulse control will help you to stop the temptations of dehumanization, avoiding impulsive, thoughtless actions
• Learning flexibility will help you to adapt to unfamiliar and unpredictable circumstances where neither you or your patient will be in full control
• Learning stress tolerance will help you to cope with the challenges of the field, while also helping to take control of overpowering stressful situations
• Learn optimism. Doctors must be optimistic. Seeking positive assurance is one of the reasons we go to you. We need optimism, positivism, and hope when we are sick. Being optimistic will help you and your patient to be hopeful and resilient, regardless of what the future is holding for your or your patients
• Learn to be perceptive, but also learn how to see things from the perception of your patient.
• Do not lose your EMPATHY. All doctors must recognize, understand, appreciate, and be able to communicate with others, regardless of the challenging circumstances. Show that you care for your patients. Show that you will do anything you can for your patient’s life and use all that emotional information around you to facilitate your thoughts, judgments, and actions. But the most important, everything you do, MEAN IT. Do not respond to your environment like you are a machine. Please do not forget why you became a wonderful doctor. Also, remember that we would be lost without you.

Iberkis Faltas, MS, PMP, PhD (ABD)

Public Policy & Administration

Management & Leadership | Law & Policy

Certified Emotional Intelligence Coach

Adjunct Faculty - Speaker