The Implicit Associates Test, developed by Greenwald and Banaji, consists of one simple task in which participants are instructed to sort words and pictures into categories. Specifically, the gender-career IAT instructs participants to sort names (e.g. Emily, John) into either the female or male categories, career related words (e.g. management) into the career category, and family oriented words (e.g. relatives) into the family category. The categories are then combined (e.g. female/family and male/career) and all of the words (i.e. names, career related words, and family oriented words) are flashed on the screen. The objective is to sort the words/names into the appropriate combined categories as fast as you can. Once completed, an IAT measures one’s unconscious attitudes toward and beliefs about certain groups of people. For example, the race IAT measures the participants “automatic preference” towards either African Americans, or Europan Americans. The weight IAT measures participants’ preferences towards fat people in relation to thin people (i.e. little to no preference for fat or thin people, slight preference for fat people compared to thin people).
I’ve always felt like I am moderately emotionally intelligent, and that I can decipher my attitudes about most issues fairly well, so I thought taking a few IATs would be an interesting opportunity to test my accuracy. I took the race, gender-career, weapons, and weight IATs. For the most part my results were consistent with my preconceptions about my beliefs and attitudes towards whites, blacks, women, men, fat, and thin people. Specifically, I’ve never really believed that I’ve had a specific bias towards European Americans people as opposed to African Americans, and the results of the race IAT I completed indicated that I showed “little or no” preference for European Americans over African Americans. I think I obtained these results because that is how I actually do feel. I don’t, consciously or unconsciously, associate blacks with “negative” words just as I don’t associate them with hostility, unintelligence, violence, or poor economic status (things that have often been used when describing African Americans). Seemingly in contrast to my assertion that I do not associate African Americans with “negative” thoughts, feelings, or issues, the weapons IAT I completed concluded that I showed a slight association of Black Americans with weapons compared to White Americans. I indeed expected this result, and argue that although weapons are often associated with violence, fear, and hostility, I demonstrated a tendency to associate weapons with Blacks because this is what our culture teaches us. I’ve been bombarded with images of African Americans holding guns, whereas probably the only images I’ve seen of Whites holding any sort of weapon in when they’re hunting for sport. I think the weapons IAT revealed a “true” attitude that I hold, and I am going to blame the media! :) Potentially the beliefs revealed by the information of this IAT could be changed, however I truly think that more Black Americans have more guns than White Americans. This could be completely false, but this is the impression I’ve received through the culture I live in!
I have strong opinions about genetic differences between men and women. That is, there are several very prominent and important anatomical differences which lead me to accept and endorse some of the more “traditional” gender roles that have been assigned to men and women. Specifically, I think that women exist to bear children, and men should provide for their families. I am not saying that I think women do not deserve equal opportunities in the work setting, or that if a woman doesn’t have children she is a “bad” woman. I would never suggest that all women need to stay at home, have babies, and cook and clean for their partners, but I do think that women were created so that they would be able to nurture their children and men were created in a way that would enhance their ability to fend for their children and give their genes a chance to survive long enough to be passed on again. For these reasons, I predicted I would associate male names with career related words and female names with family oriented words. My prediction was correct, I demonstrated a slight association of male with career and female with family. Thus, I think this IAT reveals a true attitude that I hold, one that I don’t really have any intention to change. In contrast, my results on the weight IAT surprised me, I do however believe that the test provided me with information about an attitude that I do probably have and one that I will now be trying to change. Specifically, the test suggested a “moderate automatic preference” for thin people compared to fat people. I think this preference may be due to the fact that my sister is extremely weight schematic. She always has a comment about everyone’s body, what they’re eating, and/or their appearance. I think that these comments may have primed me to notice fat people more and associate them with more negative attributes. I’m a bit disappointed about my results on the weight IAT. I predict that I will be more conscious of my preference for thin people, and that I will use this increased consciousness to change this preference.
Overall, I don’t think that completing the IATs prompted me to think about stereotypes and prejudice any differently than how I always have. I think that stereotyping and prejudice have always been issues that I’ve had strong opinions about, so I think my conscious thoughts and unconscious thoughts about these things are pretty much in sync. I think IATs are really interesting because they give people a way to understand some of the issues that have been used lately to define “modern racism.” I think the fact that they have the potential to uncover unconscious preferences that could lead to implicit racism is fascinating, and I think it could reshape a lot of people’s conceptions of contemporary racism.
Keeping my concern with the results I received from the weight IAT I took in mind, I took a second weight IAT. Before I took it I thought about my sisters possible influence on my previous results, and the fact that statistically there are probably the same number of nice or “good” fat people and thin people. I thought about these things in an attempt to eliminated the preference I showed for thin people compared to fat people. These thoughts did change my results, which suggested “little or no” preference between fat and thin people. :) Due to the fact that my results were successfully changed after thinking about equality between fat and thin people I conclude that the IAT can be influenced by priming. That is, the material participants are exposed to immediately prior to taking the IAT may play a role in momentarily shaping or eliminating unconscious “preferences” for certain groups.
Hass, R. G., Katz, I., Rizzo, N., Bailey, J., & Moore, L. (1992). When racial ambivalence evokes negative affect, using a disguised measure of mood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 786-797.
Implicit Association Test. (2010, March 4). Retrieved from Project Implicit website: https:// implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/takeatest.html
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