The goal with these online exercises is to explore our own attitudes and mindsets with regards to stereotypes, stereotyping, and ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups. A set of easy-to-take tests at Harvard, part of its Project Implicit, will help us do this. I’d like each of us to take at least two of these Project Implicit tests, and choose any two other than “Weapons” or “Presidents.” Each test takes approximately five minutes.
I also want each student to take two of the surveys at UnderstandingPrejudice.org. You are going to love these, I think. After you’ve taken the four tests (two at each website), comment to this post about what you learned, if anything. Did you learn or were you made aware of anything useful? Surprising? Did the surveys change your thinking in any way? Share your experiences with these surveys here, and do so before midnight Thursday, Oct. 27. I look forward to reading your responses.
I really enjoyed the Project Implicit tests. One of the ones I took was the Arab-Muslim test. I was surprised by my result: Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Arab Muslims compared to Other People. This surprised me because even though I’ve worked with Arabs and have a big interest in aid work in the Middle East, I distinctly remember being surprised by my racial prejudices while I was working in Central Asia this summer. Most (if not all) of my assumptions were proved wrong when I got to interact with real people, which was a great experience. Now that I’ve seen this result and starting looking back, I can see how I’d have a preference to Arab Muslims—especially in comparison with other Americans. My reaction when I see a girl or woman in a chadar or head scarf is to go up and talk to her, get her story, share a smile. Men are a little trickier, but after getting to meet some really amazing men over the summer I’ve noticed my ignorant fear is much lower than it was before my trip.
Long comment short: I was surprised by my results initially, but on thinking them over I think they’re true.
“Men are trickier.” Great quote, with so many meanings.
Your test results are a bit surprising, but a testament to your open-mindedness. And I’ll theorize here that the travel experience to Afghanistan was a huge contributor in this.
These were entertaining, I like puzzles and I tried to do these surveys without error. Sadly I was unable to. While I like to think of myself as being and open and accepting person, these tests reminded me that our society has instilled stereotypes in us such as fat people are inferior to thinner people and males have careers while women control the family. As someone who is very excited about having a career and life goals to be aided by my career, I believe women have the opportunity to have careers. However, in our society, it is tradition that men are the family providers.
It also declared that I have a preference of thinner people in general. Personally, I don’t think that is necessarily the case. Diets aren’t exactly rare in my family, and never have been. Always encouraged to diet and exercise to feel “happy” or whatever. But I am also aware of biological reasons for people being overweight and think that our society has a sick obsession with being skinny, and not just thin. Knowing that my test turned out differently than I expected makes me cringe to think of how our society is inflicting my younger siblings and cousins. I don’t think these surveys have changed my way of thinking, just made more aware of my own thought processes.
I really liked the Harvard tests. One of the ones I took was on religion preference and as much as I have resisted it recently, I still scored a Christian preference. I thought it was interesting that even though it is something I have consciously made the effort to get away from, my upbringing and the culture I am surrounded with daily still easily won the day. However, the results do make sense since Christianity is the religion I am most familiar with and obviously will associate with more strongly.
In addition, one test said I had a strong automatic preference for caucasians over african-americans. This was distressing because I always thought of myself as not prejudiced. However, it has made me more aware in how I think and react to people in my environment. It is curious to think about how this prejudice developed. It was probably developed through cultural messages and family behavior. This is something that needs to be addressed in changing the portrayal of caucasians and african-americans in society.
I was really shocked by the results of the tests that I took. Two that really took me by surprise were the African-American one and the Gay-Straight one.
The test for the gay-straight one indicated that I preferred straight people over gay people, which I do not feel is very accurate. I have really made it a point throughout my life to be as open minded and non-partial to one belief/lifestyle over another. I have a lot of friends who are homosexual, and I am really close to them, and do not think less of them because of it. I was just really shocked that this test suggested that I did prefer straight people over gay one’s because I honestly and truly do not feel like I truly feel that way.
Growing up in the south, I was actually surprised that my results for the African American-European American did not come across as me preferring white people way more than black people. That sounds awful, and I am not in the least bit racist, but coming from the south, and an old southern family with views not as open as my own, I hear negative things about African Americans. Despite how ignorant the negative views about one specific race is very incorrect, I would think that being exposed to such views as these would make my results different. I am happy with my results on that test though!
I see a common thread here of feeling a bit guilty in the ways the test results come out. Resist this. I think what the tests are showing are the things we see and the things we don’t see, or at least don’t see as well. You each speak of being deliberate and intentional in overcoming the biases you inherited (inherited — you had little control over these), which is the really important step. We see what is visible? No, it’s visible because we see it. So the more we can work to make these previously subconscious attitudes and beliefs visible, manifest, we can do something about them. So this is all really healthy.
I too enjoyed these tests. I think that many times we like to believe that we are free-thinking human beings, when in reality, our culture has definitely shaped some of our views and mindsets. That doesn’t mean that we are racist, but that we are programmed to associate certain things into categories, or stereotype. I took the Native American IA test, and I was a little surprised at the results. It said that I have a strong association of Native Americans with Foreign and White Americans with American. I was surprised because I have ancestors who are Cherokee Native Americans. I have two great grandmothers, one was half Cherokee, while the other was full Cherokee. I have always been proud of my Native American heritage and I have always been fascinated by their culture and lifestyle. Pocohontas has always been one of my favorite Disney movies even though her story was not accurately portrayed, and I have often thought that it was horrible how the Europeans treated the Native Americans when they were settled here first. However, the test did show that I grouped pictures of objects, such as Wyoming, much more quickly with the American category than when it asked me to group pictures of foreign places like Indonesia with America; I did it more quicly when it asked me to group these foreign places with the Native category. I was surprised, but I guess it shows that cultural values do shape you.
Another test that I took was the Relgious Preference scale. It ranked Christianity as the most positive preference, after Buddhism and Judaism, with Islam coming in last place. I knew that I would have a preference with Christianity because I am a Christian and I identify most with this religion. However, I was surprised that Judaism and Buddhism were tied. I thought that since Judaism is related a little more closely with Christianity that it would be higher. While none of my religious preferences were very negative, Islam was the most negative. I think our culture’s sterotyping of their faith since the 9/11 attacks have played a role in this. While I do not dislike anyone or treat others different because of thier faith, as I have many friends who believe in all sorts of different religions and some who don’t believe in a faith at all, I can see how American culture has definitely programmed society to associate negative connotations with the Islam faith. These tests were interesting, and I think it can be very eye-opening for people as long as they are truthful and have a willingness to learn about themselves.
The Harvard surveys were very interesting to me. I took the Gender-Career IAT and the Sexuality IAT. On the first I came out with a strong connection between men and scientific careers. This was especially interesting because I don’t think I consciously see science as a man dominated field, but looking at how media and society portrays science I see now that I have a slight incline towards that. The sexuality test was eye opening as well, saying that I strongly preferred straight people over homosexual people. I don’t think of myself as being prejudiced, but coming from a highly conservative family I see the influence of their ideas on my own thoughts.
When taking the surveys I was neutral in almost every one I took. I was pleased with these results because last semester I took one in my education class telling me I was racist, when in all actuality I just kept forgetting what as on one side and what was on the other. It was eye opening for me, but also very sad for me to think I might be racist at all, when in actuality I have never seen myself in that light at all. I see everyone as being equals.
So, I must begin by saying that I didn’t like these tests at all. Actually, I should rephrase that. I found the content very interesting but the format incredibly frustrating. Anything with a time limit STRESSES me out big-time. I hate having to make snap decisions or not have time to mull things over, so I believe that really contributed to my feelings over the activities. I think I have gotten to know myself enough to understand that the way I form opinions on subjects (or have my opinions changed by others) is to really think things over and process them at length. I have to have alone time in my daily routine to just think through what I have experienced and how my heart has responded towards that. Even for things as simple as how my day has gone. So, having that ability to slowly and introspectively reflect taken away was a source of anxiety for me.
As far as the content goes, I took the male/science and female/liberal arts association on Harvard’s website, which showed a slight preference for men being associated with science. I mean, I agree that this is realistic but I hate that subconsciously, I tend to draw the conclusion that men in the arts/humanities are less manly or something. Which isn’t completely true because I love listening to male artists who are good singers and things of that nature. The second IAT I took on that website was the young/old test. The data stated that I seemed to have no preference between young and old people. I think I was most thrilled with this result because as I have gotten older, I have really had my eyes opened to the precious value of older people in our lives. They have such wisdom and amazing life experiences to offer but because they don’t fit in with the beauty/youth-driven nature of our culture (that also focuses very much on productivity and human “output”), we shove them aside and label them “used up.” I hope that my lack of prejudice arises from the large amount of time I have spent with my grandmother growing up. She, my mom, my sister and I are all very close, so that has manifested an appreciation of what she brings to the table in family gatherings. Plus, my parents always stressed that older people were to be treated with respect and were going to be smarter than me.
The Understanding Prejudice test on gender showed a moderate association of male with career. I am not terribly surprised by that. The race test showed a preference for African Americans, which didn’t surprise me that much either. I have always been drawn toward that population, though I couldn’t explain why and I have a real interest in race relations in the US in particular. Ultimately, I would like to perhaps live and work in an inner city environment where I am the minority, maybe doing urban gardening or community development.
So, the short version up top: I’ve done the Project Implicit stuff before, and doing the tests again didn’t really show me much, so I tried new tests. Evidently, I’m extra racist towards Hispanics, which doesn’t surprise me because two years ago I had some Hispanic kids (specifically, they were Mexican, if you take their nationalistic clothing as a sign). The religion test had me ranking Hinduism->Islam-Judaism-> Christianity, with Christianity being a lot lower than the rest, Judaism being about midway between Christianity and Islam, and Hinduism about half the distance away from Islam that Judaism was from Islam. No idea how to interpret that, considering I’ve never met a person who was openly Hindu, in the same way I’ve met people from the other regions.
I found the stuff from Understanding Prejudice .org to be biased in part, and non-influential. Oh well.
And sorry for the short version being long.
So, I’ve done the Project Implicit tests before, both for BCC 100 and a Psych class, and I’ve learned some stuff about the tests from my classes:
1) People are inherently racist, because its part of how we evolved. We had to learn how to quickly identify those who are part of our family and those who are not to help ensure the survival of our bloodlines.
2) The tests kind of set up white people to fail. By associating our “in” group with a positive quality (something we naturally do) it becomes even harder to adapt to these things. Its also an effect of our cultural learning.
That said, I remember that the very first time I took the black-white test, I didn’t show any preference, which wasn’t what I expected. I actually went into it expecting myself to be slightly racist, even before I understood the whole Psychology thing. It also said that I was biased towards women on the gender/career test the first time I took it (and this time)
The understanding prejudice website was something I had never heard of though, so I was a lot more curious.
The first survey I took was the Diet & Life choices interview. I feel like the entire survey was extremely biased. A lot of the questions seemed rigged to me, with information being provided without sources (especially on the global warming/animal treatment bit). It also made me want a tasty chicken sandwich because I already knew about the treatment of animals bread for food and don’t really care too much, but that just makes me sound heartless.
The second test I did was the “Can you avoid Segregation” one. The first test kind of irked me, simply because there is the assumption that by grouping the tokens together you are segregating them. However, they fail to point out that by putting the same colored tokens into large groups you are able to do it more orderly and faster. My ‘final board’ consisted of all the blue tokens running down the middle of the board diagonally, while the green tokens were in the two corners. After reading the bit about how it segregates, I went back and tried the puzzle again. After four attempts and about ten minutes, I finally got the tokens to not be segregated- or at least not having only 3 massive clumps. The issue isn’t with how people think, its with the design of the puzzle. Maybe the point is just lost on me because of how I’m approaching it. Or maybe I’m just too much like a robot, because the second test the board still looked like it was half green and half blue (the half that started with all the green tokens only had eight blue tokens on it at the end- I moved the tokens around to allow for them to satisfy the condition for as many as possible)
I would say that I preferred the questioning surveys from understandingprejudice.com. I just like actual questions more than rapid fire responses.The time limit makes it feel more stressful than it is. I really did not like any of the IATs. On that note though, both Harvard surveys listed me as being neutral. I took the Native American IAT and the weight AIT. I fully expected myself to be neutral and it was nice to see that according to these surveys that I have judged myself accurately.
On understandingprejudice.com, I took the gender IAT and according to it I moderately associate men with career and women with family which is what i predicted beforehand. I don’t have a problem this labeling of me because it does not bother or surprise me when a woman works and man stays at home as opposed to tradition concepts. If that means i have a traditional and outdated point of view, that’s fine because I understand that it is simply my point of view and I’m not going to be shoving it down anyone’s throat.
The survey I enjoyed the most was the Ambivalent Sexism survey on understandingprejudice.com. I found it very interesting. Apparently I am benevolently sexist. The site equated this to the idea of a knight in shining armor. I have to say that I’m good with that. I believe that women are to be cherished, not babied or kept from doing whatever they want to or can do.
So I took the religion and gender-science tests at Project Implicit. Religion informed me that I see both Hinduism and Islam as exactly in the middle of the negative/positive scale with Christianity one tick above toward the positive and Judaism as one tick below toward the negative. This was interesting because I was unaware that I apparently have a more negative disposition to Judaism, though honestly I imagine that the results were more indicative of my unfamiliarity toward the religion than anything else. So overall, I would say that the results directly reflect on how I don’t relate to any religion in particular and consider them all relatively equally. The Gender-Science informed me I have a 28% disposition to moderately associating men with science and females with liberal arts even though I am a male psychology major with an English minor. Though I never really gave the stereotype much thought, I suppose I must have grown up following it.
I took the Ambivalent Sexism test on the second site and it ranked me as a 4 in benevolent sexism and a 1 in hostile sexism. That isn’t really that surprising considering I grew up in a household that emphasized chivalry and the likes very heavily, but I disliked many of the questions in that their wording (false choice questions, essentially). I then took the Native American test, which was interesting because it gives you a short history lesson after every question to reinforce the information. While I knew a decent amount already (I scored a 7), it helped me see how very biased our American history lessons are and how much we play down the way we destroyed the Native American way of life.
Like Emma said, I didn’t like these tests either. Both of them stressed me out. Anything where you have to press the ‘i’ or the ‘e’ key for, what seems like, 3 million times makes my eyes hurt. Anyways, while I was taking them I couldn’t help thinking how cool it is that someone can study our views on race, sex, gender preference, etc by giving us these odd little tests. A bunch of little things that seem useless and random to us while we take it, actually turns out to mean something in the end. I actually became very interested in these tests and I plan to go back and take some more of the Harvard tests after I finish the other 5,000 things of homework I have to do tonight. For the Harvard tests, I took the religion and race preference. The race one said I strongly prefer caucasians over african americans which I don’t feel is entirely true. Maybe the test knows something I don’t know? Whatever it is, I thought it was very interesting how a computer can determine so much about you by asking a bunch of random questions.
Well these tests were certainly interesting. The first test that I chose on the Harvard website was the skin tone IAT. I expected that I would either get a score that was slightly in favor to lighter skins due to my subconscious biases or a neutral score due to my belief that everyone is equal. Therefore, I was shocked to get a score saying that I had a strong automatic preference for lighter skin tones.
My first reaction was one of outrage. I knew that I, like everyone else in the world, had underlying biases, but I NEVER expected to get the highest negative score possible. I ended up taking this same test three more times and received the following scores: no automatic preference, moderate preference, and strong preference for lighter skin tone. I have a feeling that I scored the “strong preference” scores partially due to human error not related to skin tone, but after getting 3 out of 4 scores saying that I had some degree of preference, I accept that this test did reveal some degree of my natural bias.
The second test that I took was the Arab Muslim IAT, and I scored a slight automatic preference for people other than Arab Muslims. I acccepted this score and did not try and take that particular test any more.
On the Understanding prejudice website, I took the Ambivilent Sexism Test. On this test I actually scored lower than I expected. I ended up with a zero for hostile sexism and a 0.64 for benevolent sexism. I expected to get a higher score for benevolent sexism since I am a fan of the concept of chivalry when its used reasonably and fairly, but I won’t complain about a score that shows that I am not too sexist.
The fourth test that I took was the Gender IAT test. Once again, I scored a lot lower than I thought that I would. Given how my other IAT scores for other subjects were higher, I assumed that I would show some prejudice in this test. To my surprise, I received the message that my data suggested little or no association between male and female with career and family.
I strongly believe that everyone, regardless of gender or race, is created equal, but I acknowledge that I have biases that go against my beliefs. I think that I scored better on the gender based tests largely due to the fact that I visit daily a certain online community (I won’t say which one because it is incredibly nerdy) that promotes gender equality and has a large female base. I think that my experiences there and seeing their stories and perspectives has helped me to become less biased in terms of gender.
On the first website, I took the gender/career test and the old/young test. For the first, I think I was a little more prepared for what my results came out to be. I expected for my results to show a little stronger association between females and family, and males with career, but I think that is largely due to my own family situation. Both of my parents have always worked, but growing up my mom was the one who would always take more time off when my brother and I needed her to. Her job was never quite as involved as my dad’s, and she didn’t make quite as much money as him. I think this helped perpetuate my “moderate association.”
The results I received from the old/young test were much more surprising to me. I expected that I would show little to no preference between the two, but apparently I showed a strong automatic preference for young over old. It was interesting that I felt almost defiant in reaction to this. I think it has become a value in our society to be completely tolerant of any and all, in all circumstances, and to say that I have a preference for one group over another is almost an attack on this. But in view of my personal experience, I can see that this might be a result of the proportion of my time spent with young people versus old. I would say that I do not spend time on a regular basis with “old people,” or those over the age of 60, especially who are not closely related to me. So I could conclude that my preference is borne out of my familiarity with my own age.
The surveys from the Understanding Prejudice website were interesting as well. I took another test in the same format as the first two with the rapid-fire answers, only it was on the subject of African Americans and European Americans. My results showed that I have little to no automatic preference between the two. However, at this point I began to question the reliability of the test and the way it works. I think that it was my underlying desire to come out with neutral results, so I might have done the test with the intention of coming out with that specific outcome. Although it was designed to combat this, I feel like it still might be possible to manipulate results somewhat.
The last test I took was the survey about Native Americans. I began quite confidently, but as the survey went on I realized how much I was not aware of. I scored a 4 out of 10, which I felt was extremely low considering my high expectations, but apparently that majority of test takers scored a little above or a little below a 4. Overall, I would say taking the surveys was extremely informative, and caused me to assess myself in relation to social constructs and expectations.
As a few others have already stated, the Project Implicit tests were both frustrating and inconclusive. Yes, I apparently have a preference for thin people–not shocking. But anyone could have determined that in a much more conclusive way. Using the keyboard functions in that way to see if some associations are more natural that others has a facade of being brilliant but is actually riddled with experimental error and extraneous factors one must presume are unaccounted for. This calls into question the results, even though I would openly agree with them.
I see no reason to pretend that I don’t prefer thin people to overweight ones. I value both and treat both equally, but at the end of the day, I find thin people more attractive, and I don’t know why I would feel guilty about that.
The other test I took told me that I prefer African Americans, which doesn’t surprise me since I am familiar with the culture–I’m curious about what I don’t know and intrigued by what I do. It is so much more interesting to me than white culture, which can seem dry and bland, with a forced politeness that prevents authenticity (of course, this is coming from a girl who was born and raised southern).
I really enjoyed my results in the AIT test on age preferences. I feel that it adequately depicted my preferences because all age groups fell on exactly the same part of the scale except for my own age group which was slightly closer to the negative end. When I started thinking about these results, I really began to see that I do tend to view my own age group in a more negative light than other age groups. I tend to have a lot of patience with children, I respect and love talking with middle-aged adults, and I admire the wisdom commonly found in older adults. However, I seem to become very easily frustrated with people of my own age group. Maybe this is because I always hold people of my age group to an intellectual expectation and when it is not met, I am not patient enough to sympathize with them. Also, this may be because I deal with people of my own age group on a more regular basis so I have more of an opportunity to become irritated by certain social trends among them. Nonetheless, the results were very interesting because they really brought to light how different my emotions are and my level of patience when dealing with people of different age groups.
These tests were extremely interesting and eye-opening for me. I did not really like the tests because of the pictures and words flashed so fast. Also my right and left hand mattered. I was never fast with my left hand. These tests did make me think about myself. One of my tests said that I liked young people over old people. The other said I liked people that were able over disable. I strongly disagree with both of these. I do not have an preference. I find them all equally important.
The Harvard IATs that I took were the Religion and Sexuality ones. I chose these mainly because I felt like they were the most prominent issues, in terms of prejudice, that Americans are facing right now. The religion test was interesting because it didn’t take the same approach that some of the other tests took. For example, it associated every religion with good or bad and not at the same time; therefore, not making you chose which is the “better” religion. However, I did realize that I had a stronger tendency to associate Christian terms with good terms over some of the other religions. The finding I thought was most surprising was that at the end when it showed my rankings of which religions were best to worst in my mind, Judaism was at the very bottom. It was under Buddhism and Islam, which I thought was strange. I didn’t realize that my subconscious ranked the Jewish tradition so low, especially compared to traditions that are more negatively viewed in my lifetime. I don’t know where this alleged prejudice stems from. The sexuality test was slightly more predictable. I am in no way prejudiced towards either straight or gay preferences in society; however, the quiz positioned the gay words and images with negative terms first, so my mind was stuck on that association in the following rounds, even after the switch to positive terms was made. Even though my results showed that I had a higher preference for individuals who were straight, seeing as individuals tend to be drawn towards other individuals who are “like” them, my non-preferential scores were not much lower than my preference toward straight people scores, which was a pleasant surprise, in my opinion. I expected my subconscious to be more situated with the general public and cultural opinion of the south and not with my personal views, but I was glad that I was able to overcome these stereotypes to some extent.
The Understanding Prejudice surveys I took were in regards to general stereotypical notions and race. I was curious to see where my subconscious fell in terms of racial prejudices, because I was raised in Alabama, and even though I get frustrated with people constantly asking me if I dislike the African American race solely based on the fact that I am from Alabama, the question isn’t totally out of line. Yes, intense segregation that once existed in Alabama is now gone, but some older citizens of my fair state do still harbor slight prejudices toward the African American race and all that their culture entails. It may not even be a straight out racist remark, but occasionally I come in contact with people who cross the line with their views on race and African Americans in modern society. I scored with a preference towards whites; however, again, I think this travels back to the notion of human beings being drawn to other human beings that are like them. I don’t think of myself as being “racist” per se; however, I do occasionally have that moment of fret when I am in a predominantly African American area late at night, for no reason other than a prejudice. I don’t associate in my head that my fear and the location being predominantly African American are intertwined, but thinking on it now, it is clear.
Overall, I enjoyed the way that these tests challenged my subconscious to eliminate certain stereotypes that I didn’t immediately realize that I had been burrowing; however, I did feel like the ordering on certain ones were attempting to skew the mind in certain directions and that frustrated me a little bit.