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Benchmark- Implicit Prejudices

Justice Perry Grand Canyon University PSY-362 Professor Sliwa November 29, 2020

2 Benchmark- Implicit Prejudices The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a type of test that measures people’s attitudes/beliefs that they do not want to report (Project Implicit, n.d.). It can also bring forth attitudes that someone may not have even known they had. The IAT was created to form a better understanding of a person’s implicit attitudes and how they may unconsciously perceive another person. There are many different types of this test and some of them can include weight, sexuality, and race. The test I took was the one about Race (‘Black- White’ IAT). This IAT is used to find out whether people have an automatic preference for European American or African American faces. It is used to indicate if Americans have a preference for white over black. The way this test worked was by using pictures of European American and African American faces and certain words that were either good or bad to help with the identification of a person’s preferences. My results from this test had said that I had a moderate automatic preference for the white people over the black people. I always found these tests interesting, so I was curious to see who I would prefer. For the most part, my results did not really surprise me in any way. I grew up in a not so great town where there were many people who had substance abuse problems. While there was diversity in my town, it was still very small, so I never really interacted with black people. It was natural for me to prefer white people over black people because all of my friends were white and so was my family. If I had grown up in a place where I were to have been exposed to all races from the beginning, I think my results would have been drastically different. I would most likely have had a neutral preference and it probably would not have leaned to either side. I would have

3 been shocked if my results had said that I had a slight or more automatic preference for black people over white people, but I am not really shocked at my results. Since my results has shown that I had a moderate automatic preference for white people over black people, it’s hard to understand if that plays a role in defining me as a person. This test, like most tests, isn’t 100% accurate. It just showed me a potential reasoning for my implicit attitudes, but it may not be an accurate result of my implicit preferences/attitudes. The IAT comes up with the results from the time it takes you to sort the good/bad words from the images of European American and African American faces. I think my results were valid for me because of how exposed I was to the white community and how little I came in to contact with people from the black community. Implicit bias, also known as implicit social cognition, alludes to the attitudes or stereotypes that can have an affect on our understanding, actions, and decisions unconsciously (Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, n.d.). People tend to find themselves participating in stereotyping which is when people assume that members of a group have a whole range of certain characteristics or abilities. It’s basically a generalized belief about that group. Implicit bias tends to happen when our brain starts searching for possible outcomes or anything of the sort. Implicit bias is a way for us to simplify things. These biases are also influenced by the experiences people have. With how our society is today, social media, cultural conditioning, and our childhoods are some of the main things that can affect our implicit reactions about people/groups. When it comes to my own implicit bias, I feel like the main things that contributed to it was my upbringing and social media. When we are younger, we tend to start believing everything our family or friends have said about certain things whether it be about people or things that happen in the world. Pretty much everybody’s implicit biases are going to

4 differ from each other, and our experiences are important when it comes to this because it’s going to affect us in some way. When it comes to the IATs, the validity can be questionable. Validity is how accurate scores are in regard to the variables intended and it’s also a judgement based on a lot of evidence (Gilovich et al., 2018). This test gets your results from how fast you sort the words or images into the categories of good and bad. This can cause issues and the algorithm used is probably not completely accurate. When I was taking this test, I was more worried about clicking the right keys and trying to be quick that I took more time to think about what I was doing instead of it being unconscious in a way. Because of how this test is made to work, with associating images with certain words, it is hard to figure out the validity of this test. In my opinion, I think this test could be a valid and reliable measure of implicit bias but there are a few kinks that need to be sorted out before it can reach that point. There are a few anomalies that can affect the validity of this test. Conclusion The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is very much used in today’s society to get a feel of people’s implicit biases and show them what they tend to prefer, unconsciously. There are many factors that play a role in our implicit attitudes and biases. We never truly know how deep our potential biases lay but because of how many tests there are today, we can come to figure those out. We can see if we have any biases regarding gender, sexualities, race, etc. because of the IATs. But in the end, it is important for us to make our own opinions about certain things without falling prey to the stereotypes.

5 References Gilovich, T., Keltner, D., & Chen, S. (2018). Social Psychology. [5th ed.]. New York: W.w. Norton & Company. https://digital.wwnorton.com/44952/r/goto/cfi/8!/4 Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. (n.d.). Understanding implicit bias. http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/#:~:text=Also %20known%20as%20implicit%20social,decisions%20in%20an%20unconscious %20manner. Project Implicit. (n.d.). Overview. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html...