Discover Your Implicit Biases
A fascinating form of psychological research can help you identify biases that you are unwilling or unable to recognize. Several years ago, three scientists developed a new technique for understanding what they designate as implicit attitudes and stereotypes. The result of their work culminated in Project Implicit, a series of prompts that can be used to help identify biases in the human mind.
Here are some additional details taken from Project Implicit website:
[quote_box author=”” profession=””]The Project Implicit site (implicit.harvard.edu) has been functioning as a hands-on science museum exhibit, allowing web visitors to experience the manner in which human minds display the effects of stereotypic and prejudicial associations acquired from their socio-cultural environment.[/quote_box]When you have ten extra minutes, head on over to the Project Implicit website and take an Implicit Association Test. The results may surprise you.
“Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Light Skin compared to Dark Skin”
And why shouldn’t it? Are we not all partial to our own kin?
In a society that tells us we have strength in diversity, we’re also told that we are equal. Such double speak shows the holes in this worldview.
Why not keep each culture separate?
Would you choose to have every race and culture throughout the world replaced with a single color, race and culture?
I see the beauty in each and every culture, and strongly encourage to keep the distinctions strong. Seperatism is strength.
Hey Silas,
Thanks for sharing some of your thoughts.
You were careful to emphasize a separation of cultures, in conjunction with an appreciation for those cultures. Your view is more balanced than most.
Project Implicit highlights biases and stereotypes, but in some cases it also reveals the ethnocentric attitudes that pervade each human mind. These attitudes can be positive or negative depending on the context.
Thanks for contributing. I look forward to more of your comments in the future.
I only found the religion test.
http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp216/Hearts_Clarkie/k-2-1.jpg
I took the religions, sexuality and race IPT and my findings were very interesting. I found that I prefered christians first followed closly by islam and judasim. I found that i had a moderate tendency toward straight people followed by an unbias towards gays or staights. In the race test I found that I had a slight tendency toward light skinned people over dark skined people.
Today while reading a newsfeed article I couldn’t help but think about the “skin tone” implicit test I took awhile ago (my results said I had no preference to light or dark skin). Anyway the article was about kids and how they begin to discriminate at a very young age.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/214989/page/1
More than anything it made me think of what Silas said:
“And why shouldn’t it? Are we not all partial to our own kin?”
And I really couldn’t understand how someone could be blatanly racist but probably not realize it themselves.
Anyway, this article really put things into perspective for me.
Logan,
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Mr. Waldron!
I took the African-American to European American IAT and the result said, “Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between European American and African American.”
Then I took the Religions IAT test and was more positive towards Christianity.
I took the Gender-Career IAT and my result was: “Your data suggest a strong association of Male with Career and Female with Family compared to Female with Career and Male with Family.”
I really liked these tests. They seemed to be pretty accurate. They also contributed to an interesting dinner conversation. Thanks for the recommendation!
Wowza. So i took this even though you didnt mention it to our class. Lawl. So i took the Racist one and it turns out that i have a strong automatic preference to european americans over african americans. I also took the religion and the sexuality one. I don’t want to mention the religion one and the sexuality one i got neutral. however the only one i found accurately played was the racist test. The other tests seemed bias inself and completely pointless.