http://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/study.html
So, if y'all watched Oprah today you will have heard of this. Basically it's a test to gauge what your initial knee-jerk bias is between African American and European American ethnicities. This has more to do with culture than you personally so don't get stressed out if you get a moderate bias.
The guy who helped develop the test (who is half black) got a 'moderate bias toward European American people' as do many people of many cultures because we generally live in a media world that is moderately biased at best, at least in representation. Therefore, whether we intend to or not, we develop certain associations and this test is supposed to measure that.
Anyway, I'm starting to treat this test like a computer game and have gotten two results of moderately biased toward EA, two slightly biased toward EA, two little to no bias either way, a slight bias toward AA, and just now a moderate bias toward AA (without intentionally messing with the answers obviously)
I do not think this shows the test is faulty, I think it shows I'm quite good at turning it into a computer game. After doing the test twice I thought - this is just total bunk because it disorients how you've trained your fingers to answer the questions two times and so it seems possible that I got a stronger result just because my fingers reacted faster than my brain.
But then, as I repeated and repeated the test I did notice my brain wanting to classify the pictures in a slight biased way. It was interesting.
Then again, the same thing happened this last time when I turned out quite prejudiced against white people.... I had a hard time classifying the good words with the white people. So... maybe it's all bunk anyway.
I haven't decided. But it's interesting all the same. There is a gender one too I'd be fascinated to take but it's off line at the moment.
RTO
5 months ago
6 comments:
I have a problem with this. Every time I've ever done it (twice tonight and several times in the past) it's always paired the African American with the negative words first. So I feel set-up.
I agree, you can approach it as a game. I don't know my score, but I think I did much better the second time. It really becomes a thinking/reflex thing.
Ha - yeah I thought the same thing - but it does switch the order - which totally threw me off because I thought it was static.
You don't even know how up my alley this is.... =)
This is a well-known study in the field of Social Psychology. I always made my students do the test, as well. If you can do the other tests as well, do those! I was astonished to find, for myself, that I had a strong gender bias such that I had a harder time pairing math/science words with women than with men (this, from a woman in academia who firmly believes that women are every bit as smart as men!).
Cool stuff. I know it seems weird, but don't dismiss this out of hand. And, good point, Adrea, that it may be more about our cultural upbringing than individual prejudices, etc. Some argue that even if we *do* have these deeply ingrained "Implicit" biases, we still have the ability to profess, believe, and indeed even act in completely non-biased or non-prejudiced manners. Just goes to show you the effects of culture and the power of individual thought and belief.
Sorry for the novel, but I am fascinated by this!
Jen Gray
I was raised with strong racial, and sexual predjudices from an otherwise loving family that embarrases me even today. Because of that past I rebelled early and I always cringe in anger and disbelief when I hear or see it. Yet I know that that conditioning remains in me and the knowing keeps me aware.
Having some Native American ancestry myself, I took the test only to find out that I have a moderate bias against Native Americans. Probably says a lot about me.
Oh I do know how up your ally this is! But the gender one is off line - probably because they knew the traffic the Oprah show would cause, I don't know. I'd actually be more interested in my score in that.
And yes, the more I thought of it as a game, the more I could 'beat' it without actually cheating like "whoops I just put the white guy in the bad column AGAIN tee hee", but at the same time, the more I did the test the more I could actually feel my brain's compulsion rather than just my finger reflexes.
It's funny James, my mom felt set up the opposite way (even though she got just a slight bias) because her test started with AA /good so she felt that by the time it got to AA / bad her dexterity was better so she was putting people in the categories quicker anyway.
Dad, yeah... the only good thing about not growing up with the big fams around us is we didn't ever really see that in them - we only ever saw the good parts.
Dave... Dave... Dave... You have to realize the effect this is going to have on your children. Just today, at the mall, Wesley emptied out a Tradition Native American Healer's sacred pouch and told him to go learn baseball. It was just inappropriate.
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