In class, one of the student discussion groups asked us, the students, to partake in a race implicit test online. A description on the website states:
Race (‘Black – White’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of European and African origin. It indicates that most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black.
Basically the survey results will give you a general idea of an implicit bias of white over black or “European Americans” over “African Americans.” Taking the test was interesting, and I may had focused on making sure I was pressing the correct words to the correct group when one of 3 different ways are tested. I fulfilled the test and my results suggested that I have little to no automatic preference to either European Americans over African Americans or vice versa. The whole point of the test is for you to take it quickly rather than completing it slowly. And depending by how much longer it takes you to associated “good” words and “bad” words to a face of a white man or woman and a face of a black man or woman. Several factors may explain the reason why it takes different amounts of time to react to different races and the results of your test. I would say my results do relate to how I feel towards white people, or black people, or any ethnicity; we are all people. I know that sounds vague but we are all equal in the way that we all live and breath and create or destroy, but we are all living and our common destination is the same. All people should be treated with equal respect. Basic rights are everybody’s individually (in most cases.)
However, I digress (but it was my introduction,) I wanted to do a sort of an experiment or survey myself and asked my roommate, my boyfriend, and his roommate, all very good friends, to take the same test. I wanted to know if the fact that I have learned about this test from the class that I am taking in school, and if what I am learning about will have a significant impact on my results in the test as compared to my friends that were taking the test, and I didn’t tell them what the test was about until they all took it individually, therefore had no prior knowledge that could possibly alter the results of their automatic preference of white over black, or vice versa, or little to no preference.
I think an interesting side study of these tests are the specific ethnicity of the person taking the test. For that reason I will state that my roommate, is an American girl from Pennsylvania, very close to the Harrisburg Area to be specific, my boyfriend is South Korean and his roommate is born in Abu Dhabi. I asked all three to take the test and share their results with me, if they felt comfortable to do so. All three received that they had an automatic preference of European Americans over African Americans. Their results may have been a causation of many different possibilities.
my results (hard to see sorry)
I encourage my readers to take the test, and explore the website overall, because there are other tests available as well. What will you do with the information of your results once you take it? It is important to study the factors that may contribute to your automatic preference results.
Excellent post! Thanks for sharing. I think it’s awesome that you went above and beyond to see if your results were a certain way because you knew what the test was about beforehand. Testing your friends was a great way to see. I also felt like during the test, I may have focused on putting the “correct” answers because I knew what the survey was testing me on. I received that I slightly prefer European Americans over African Americans. I was upset that I got this answer, because I never saw myself that way. I have both white and black close friends and never thought of myself “preferring” one over the other. I wish I could go back and see what answers made the generator choose my preference. Anyway, this was a great MLE assignment and I’m glad you took it further by testing your friends!
I thought it was a great idea to incorporate the extra information about the results of your close friends. It helps to kind of tell whether or not your results were because of your social environment at school or whether the people you associate with have the same views. Great job! I agree it was also kind of weird taking that test!
Hey Adeline, thanks for the read!
I was a psych major for a little bit, so I’m curious as to if they bent the truth a little before testing you. One of the rules to making a test is to try not to let the person being tested know ‘exactly’ what they were being tested on. The idea is that if you know what you’re being evaluated on, you’ll tweak the answers (as in, if you know answer “A” makes you a good person and answer “B” means you’re bad, and you want to be graded a good person, so you pick “A” regardless of if you agree with the answer).
So in short I guess I’m asking if you knew specifically what you were being tested on or if they found a way to test you effectively regardless of how much you knew was going on.
Interesting use of the MLE assignment. I think it’s valuable to know more about each of your subject’s interaction, attitudes and perspectives of blacks BEFORE you had them to this test, then provide some discussion of their thoughts after learning of their “preference.”