Reflection On The Implicit Association Test

Before taking the Implicit Association Test (IAT), I thought that it was an interesting way to test for unconscious prejudice because it shows how different qualities and values are associated with white and black people. I know that I am biased towards both groups in different areas, but I felt nervous before taking the test. I think that was because I thought it would make me feel like a bad person depending on my results. I know that I am not an inherently bad person based on any test results, but the idea of having concrete results made me a bit nervous even though I know I am situationally biased. After the test, I was disappointed by my results. The first time I took it, my results showed that I had no automatic preference between …show more content…
I tried to focus more on being accurate than being fast. I think the socially intuitive pairings did process a bit quicker in my mind than the counterintuitive ones, but not by a significant margin of time. The socially intuitive pairings are the ones that we are primed by society to recognize. We are still relatively fresh out of the civil rights age where we see numerous examples of the inequality among races. It seems like everyday now there is some issue that takes root in racial background, from police fatally shooting unarmed black males to the candidates for president to entertainment medias. I have met more white people that I am afraid of than black people, but I still sometimes walk across the street to avoid walking by some people. Even though I know it has no basis, I still occasionally allow these stereotypes to enter my …show more content…
Even though it uses random assignment to determine which concept and evaluation were paired, there is no random sample of participants. Being an online test, any results are from voluntary responses which is a type of bias. The test does not represent a specific population as a whole and cannot be used to draw statistically significant conclusions. Because of this, I take the end results lightly, but there is something to be said about the idea of implicit association and unconscious prejudice. I agree that these concepts are real and drive our society to do things that we do not realize are biased. Our daily lives are consumed by underlying racial biases from news outlets to entertainment that place these associations into our