Sociology | Wiley | Harvard’s Implicit Bias Test, D___ Name:

Actively read about Harvard’s Project Implicit program and associated tests below. Then respond to the question that follows.

Harvard University runs a Project Implicit program for testing implicit (hidden, inherent, unspoken, buried, indirect) biases for gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. Today we’ll take one of their tests that measures for implicit racial biases we might have. The test is based in part on the book Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People (2013) by two renowned psychologists whose work has profound sociological implications. Here is a summary of the book:

I know my own mind.
I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way.
These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. “Blindspot” is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases. Writing with simplicity and verve, Banaji and Greenwald question the extent to which our perceptions of social groups—without our awareness or conscious control—shape our likes and dislikes and our judgments about people’s character, abilities, and potential.
In Blindspot, the authors reveal hidden biases based on their experience with the Implicit Association Test, a method that has revolutionized the way scientists learn about the human mind and that gives us a glimpse into what lies within the metaphoric blindspot. The title’s “good people” are those of us who strive to align our behavior with our intentions. The aim of Blindspot is to explain the science in plain enough language to help well-intentioned people achieve that alignment. By gaining awareness, we can adapt beliefs and behavior and “outsmart the machine” in our heads so we can be fairer to those around us. Venturing into this book is an invitation to understand our own minds.
Blindspot is a book that will challenge and change readers for years to come.“Banaji and Greenwald deserve a major award for writing such a lively and engaging book that conveys an important message: Mental processes that we are not aware of can affect what we think and what we do. Blindspot is one of the most illuminating books ever written on this topic.”—Elizabeth F. Loftus, Ph.D., distinguished professor, University of California, Irvine; past president, Association for Psychological Science; author of Eyewitness Testimony.

  1. Do you think you might be implicitly biased toward other races? Why or why not?

Go to this link: or do a google search of “Project Implicit Preliminary Information” click “I wish to proceed”  click “Race IAT” and take the test. Be as honest as possible when faced with questions and be as focused as possible during the sorting tasks.

  1. Summarize your results. How did the system reach this conclusion? Read through the entire summary of your results.

Read more about the tests now that you’ve completed them:

How Does The IAT Work?The IAT measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., European American and African American or Black people and White people) and evaluations (e.g., good, bad). The main idea is that making a response is easier when closely related items share the same response key. We would say that one has an implicit preference for European American (or White people) relative to African American (or Black people) if they are faster to categorize words when European American (or White people) and Good share a response relative to when African American (or Black people) and Good share a response key.

Why Should I Care About My IAT Score?Implicit preferences can predict behavior. Implicit preferences are related to discrimination in hiring and promotion, medical treatment, and decisions related to criminal justice.

What Can I Do About an Implicit Preference That I Do Not Want?Right now, there is not enough research to say for sure that implicit biases can be reduced, let alone eliminated. Packaged "diversity trainings" generally do not use evidence-based methods of reducing implicit biases. Therefore, we encourage people to instead focus on strategies that deny implicit biases the chance to operate, such as blind auditions and well-designed "structured" decision processes.

Other People's Results: The summary of other people's results shows that most people implicitly prefer European American (or White people) to African American (or Black people) - i.e., they are faster sorting when good words and European American (or White people) images go with the same key. Notably, more than 50% of the people included in this graph report having no difference in their attitudes toward the two racial categories.

What About Order Effects?One very common question is about the order of the parts of the IAT. The answer is yes, the order in which you take the test can influence on your overall results. But, the effect is very small. So if you first pair African American (or Black people) + bad and then pair African American (or Black people) + good, your results might be just a tiny bit more negative toward African American (or Black People) than they would be if you had done the reverse pairing first. One way that we try to minimize this order effect is by giving more practice trials before the second pairing than we did before the first pairing. It is also important to know that each participant is randomly assigned to an order, so half of test-takers complete African American (or Black people) + bad and then African American (or Black people) + good, and the other half of test-takers get the opposite order.

  1. What is your reaction to this test and your results? Be specific.

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