‘Accountability is a love language’ both inside and outside the clinic
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Holding others accountable and being held accountable for transgressions of all types can lead to growth in relationships, according to the keynote presenter at the 2024 Association of Women in Rheumatology annual conference.
“What we are going to discuss today is everyday life,” Puja Mehta, MD, of the Center for Inflammation and Tissue Repair, in the division of medicine at University College London, told attendees. “Trust and accountability are a part of relationships. Accountability is being counted on to do the right thing.”
Mehta stressed that conflict is inevitable in any relationship.
“It can actually be a good thing,” she said. “It can help us identify problems and create solutions.”
Importantly, the way that conflicts are identified and addressed can lead to positive or negative results and be “constructive or destructive,” Mehta added.
“Constructive is respectful and looking for solutions,” she said. “Destructive is aiming to win.”
According to Mehta, it is essential to consider that people are blind to their own biases.
“We have all been socially conditioned,” she said. “There are multiple agents of socialization.”
Television, radio, news outlets, religion and social media all fall into this category, but constitute just a small part of a larger picture.
“There is also the company we keep, including family, peers, teachers and bosses all throughout our life,” Mehta said. “We need to be conscious to this to challenge our assumptions and biases. The carbon monoxide of an echo chamber is seductive.”
To combat that seduction, Mehta encouraged attendees to seek out cognitive diversity and people who have opposing viewpoints.
“It is actually a good thing,” she said. “It is like going to the gym for your character.”
Mehta acknowledged that stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, interacting with people with different viewpoints and allowing oneself to be held accountable can be scary.
“There are barriers to accountability, including fear and cancelation,” she said. “There is fear of disciplinary action. Is this going to affect our career, our job, our reputation? The time required to introspect is time that none of us have.”
Cognitive dissonance can also come into play, while engaging in discussion of topics pertaining to one’s biases may lead to unwanted information, Mehta added.
“There is the fragility of wanting to be someone who we are not,” she said.
This fragility can lead people to become defensive, according to Mehta.
“It is difficult to challenge our culture and deeply embedded sense of identity,” she said. “However, identity should be evolving as time goes.”
Mehta acknowledged that “good humans can do bad things,” but that splitting people into binaries is often unhelpful.
“We can all change,” she said.
Ultimately, each individual is responsible for his or her own road to accountability.
“If you know who you are and you own who you are, you can create who you are,” Mehta said. “We are all very attached to our identities.”
When those identities are attacked, it can cause adverse kneejerk reactions that are often unhelpful and unproductive. Mehta encouraged attendees to rise above those reactions.
“Accountability is a love language,” she said. “It is empowering. Every pawn can become a queen. We all have impact on other people as well as ourselves.”
Collapse
Mehta P. Keynote Address: Accountability: Creating a Conscious Culture. Presented at: Association of Women in Rheumatology annual conference; July 25-27, 2024; Orlando, Florida (hybrid meeting).
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts