Week 2: CheckPoint - Implicit Attitudes Test
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The IAT attempts to answer what your background, unconscious, response
is to groups of people. For this reason the test focuses
primarily on culture-based prejudice.
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I took the race based test and I got the result of "Your data suggest a
strong automatic preference for European American relative to African
American." First, from personal experience this is not the case,
and I tend to treat people without regard to their skin color.
This construct of this test worked against a cognitive deficiency
exacerbated, or caused, by the Multiple Sclerosis that allowed me to
associate the first set of terms, but had significant trouble
regrouping the words. This is consistent with other tests, and
routine day to day work, in regards to my diminished memory and spatial
relationships capacity. I am certain that if the test had been
rearranged to test "Black American" with the good words then my result
would have been the exact opposite. Unfortunately, I cannot test
my theory since I've already associated the words with their placement
on the screen, verified when I watched my wife take the test and I
mentally wanted to go to the wrong side for words and images. I
also had the added distraction of both of my kids climbing on me for
the final part of the test, and the distraction heavily affected my
results. Finally, the test seems to be in inherently biased
towards there being some level of prejudice. Especially in
consideration of the FAQ indicating that there are a significant amount
of black people who favor white people.
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Yes, it is difficult to accurately measure prejudice. While the
IAT attempts to overcome the obstacle of people lying on test or "lying
the themselves" it fundamentally is a generalized test that
oversimplifies the issue. Furthermore, in particular with the
IAT, the assumption is made that there is a subconscious and that it is
testable; both are heavily contested. Without the IAT premises
then there will certainly be the issues of lying, lying to themselves,
and deemphasizing any prejudice. With these issues in
consideration it may not be possible to accurately and consistently
measure anyones prejudice levels.
© Erik Smith 2005
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Free Documentation License