Are you a racist?

Interesting study design from Harvard measures a variety of things, including gut associations to black and white faces.

Study here:  https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.jsp

The "Race IAT" is the main one - I'm sure the others are interesting too.  It's clever in that it only measures the time of your response - no wrong answers are possible, so there is no particular judgment involved.

I do have some questions about the methodology, particularly related to the order of things, and web-based surveys are necessarily problematic, but very fascinating nevertheless.

Post your results - I got "Strong Preference for White over Black Faces".  I think that's their "most racist" result.  Doh!

 

Clark Kent wrote: I got "Strong Preference for White over Black Faces".

Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between White American and African American.

Now that a few of you have taken it - my main question about the methodology: 

When white/black and good/bad were mixed together, was white and good together first, or black and good together first?

For me, white/good were together first.  I hope they alternate/randomize this, because I think that initial association might lead to an inertia bias.

Eh, did I do something wrong, or did that test take like.... 10 minutes?

Mine was the same as yours, Clark. White and good were associated together first. However, I got a White Automatic Preference to White compared to Black.

Edited by Dom - 29 January 2006 at 1:55pm

No one can deny they've done/said something racist at some point in their lives, I think.

bluemunky wrote: No one can deny they've done/said something racist at some point in their lives, I think.

I'm not sure I would agree with that, there are plenty of people in the world from mixed marraiges that are unbiassed and are truely color blind.

Sorry for the double post . . .

Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for White American compared to Black American.

But here's my question: how would the results have turned out if black/good associations were grouped together first? I know for a fact that I'm not racist. I also know that I had gotten into the habit of associating both "good" and "white" with "e" before going into the next phase of the test.

Maybe my result should be read in a different kind of way . . .

Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for the E key compared to the I key.

Because that's all the test really amounts to, anyway.



Edited by Ejp414 - 29 January 2006 at 2:05pm

What is everyone's racial backround?

I am caucasion.