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Home / Business & Management / Diversity & Inclusion / Cultivating Diversity through Research and Insights / Respectful curiosity and humility is a cure

Respectful curiosity and humility is a cure

Ultimately, all you need to do to increase diversity in your research is act with genuine humility and respectful curiosity.
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3.2
I think we can do that by entering the world of curiosity, because if you if they’re known as like unknown unknowns, then you don’t know that you have them. So how can you how could you possibly like change that? So the only I mean, the way that I do is personally, my life is like, I constantly expose myself to different things and I make it an exercise. Like every Sunday, I go out and I try to do something that allows me to expand my horizon. And usually for me, that’s like going to a bookshop and maybe just going to section, which I would never have gone to before.
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But I think it’s exposing yourself and like looking at the world with a level of curiosity and never assuming that you actually know, like just assuming that you don’t know anything at all times that will always allow you to do. You know, that’s why this is like because if you don’t know anything, you can always improve upon that. If you believe that you don’t know anything. There’s everything in the world to learn. So, yeah, I think and I think the problem is like in our in our sector, people always talk about empathy. It’s like, yeah, we need to be empathetic.
87.2
But then they don’t talk about the the kind of like exposure and curiosity that you need to have just on a day-to-day basis, not just on a person to person level, but on a broader level as well. Like, I think that’s a level of like non human empathy, you know, like to expose yourself to things like that. Yeah, I think just like Mariam is saying.. It’s there’s no quick fix for it, like, I think, you know, putting aside, like in this day of google, like in a age where you can just google and find like an article to find the answer to anything.
120.2
There’s no article that will explain the whole culture to you or their whole way of thinking to you, It’s literally a lifestyle. And it’s just generally like, what Mariam is saying, is that put yourself in a position to learn, because especially like I obviously, I know we are in a pandemic, its completely different, so you will behind a computer screen. But generally, like just put yourself in Environments, where there is places to learn and accept that, you know, you have a level of ignorance. I accept that I have a level of ignorance, like I don’t know everything, and if I think I know everything, then I’m making a fool of myself.

There are two main types of curiosity: humble and voyeuristic.

When we engage in voyeuristic curiosity, we overlay our personal biases and assumptions onto the subjects of our curiosity. While that can impact our understanding of personal interests, its effects on our research are irreparable.

Humble curiosity seeks to understand that which we know nothing about. It doesn’t presume prior knowledge or try to understand subjects in preset terms, categories and definitions.

When we engage in humble curiosity, we can gain a deep understanding of our research subjects without impacting our conclusions.

We all engage in both types of curiosity. We should constantly reassess whether our understanding is informed by the subject or our preconceptions.

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This content is taken from Livity online course
Cultivating Diversity through Research and Insights
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Cultivating Diversity through Research and Insights

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