Implicit bias

[Dagger]

This thread is based on an article that ran in the most recent edition of [i]The Washington Post Magazine[/i]. I'm pretty sure the article isn't available online, but I've quoted bits of it in an attempt to convey its main points.

A simple test has been developed that claims to uncover buried prejudices in apparently unbiased or PC-minded people. Basically, this is how it works: one variation of the test shows you a series of black and white faces, and asks you to hit certain keys when you see a black face or a white face. Next, it shows you a series of positive (i.e. "wonderful" and "glorious" and "joy") words and negative (i.e. "nasty" and "awful" and "failure") words, again requiring you to hit certain keys to distinguish between them. After that, the categories are combined. You're asked to hit one key when you see a white face or a positive word, and a different key for a black face or a negative word. Lastly, it's reversed--you hit one key when you see a white face or a negative word, and another key when you see a black face or a positive word.

The test purports to quantify unconscious bias by measuring the difference in reaction time--people who take longer to associate positive words with black faces than to associate positive words with white faces are assumed to harbor a bias against blacks. Alternate versions of the test have been developed to measure bias against, say, homosexuals, women and Muslims.

[quote]The Implicit Association Test is designed to examine which words and concepts are strongly paired in people's minds. For example, "lightning" is associated with "thunder," rather than "horses," just as "salt" is associated with "pepper," "day" with "night." ... Connecting concepts that the mind perceives as incompatible simply takes extra time. The time difference can be quantified and, the creators of the test argue, is an objective measure of people's implicit attitudes. For years, Banaji [the woman who developed the test] had told students that ugly prejudices were not just in other people, but inside themselves. As Banaji stared at her results, the cliche felt viscerally true.[/quote]
[quote]The bias tests, which have now been taken by more than 2 million people, 90 percent of them American, and used in hundreds of research studies, have arguable revolutionized the study of prejudice. In their simplicity, the tests have raised provocative questions about this nation's ideal of a meritocracy and the nature of America's red state/blue state divide. Civil rights activists say the tests have the potential to address some of the most corrosive problems of American society; critics, meanwhile, have simultaneously challenged the results and warned they could usher in an Orwellian world of thought crimes.[/quote]
[quote]Overall, according to the researchers, large majorities showed biases for Christians over Jews, the rich over the poor, and men's careers over women's careers. The results contrasted sharply with what most people said about themselves--that they had no biases. The tests also revealed another unsettling truth: Minorities internalized the same biases as majority groups. Some 48 percent of blacks showed a pro-white or anti-black bias; 36 percent of Arab Muslims showed an anti-Muslim bias; and 38 percent of gays and lesbians showed a bias for straight people over homosexuals.

"The Implicit Association Test measures the thumbprint of the culture on our minds," says Banaji, one of three researchers who developed the test and its most ardent proponent. "If Europeans had been carted to Africa as slaces, blacks would have the same beliefs about whites as whites now have about blacks."[/quote]
[quote]Test takers... are frequently shocked by their results. The tests are stupid, and the results wrong, some say. People have argued that the tests are measures of only hand-eye coordination or manual dexterity. Some have complained about which groups are assigned to the left and right-hand keys, and about how the computer switches those categories. None of these factors has any real impact on the results, but Banaji believes the complaints are a sign of embarrassment. Americans find evidence of implicit bias paricularly galling, Banaji theorizes, because more than any other nation, America is obsessed with the idea of fairness. Most of the people approached for this article declined to participate...

But tests do not measure actions. The race test, for example, does not measure racism as much as a race bias. Banaji is the first to say people ought to be judged by how they behave, not how they think. She tells incredulous volunteers who show biases that it does not mean they will always act in biased ways--people can consciously override their biases. But she also acknowledges a sad finding of the research: Although people may wish to act in egalitarian ways, implicit biases are a powerful predictor of how they actually behave.[/quote]
Thoughts? Comments? You can take the test online [url=http://implicit.harvard.edu/][u]here[/u][/url] or learn more about it [url=https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/faqs.html][u]here[/u][/url].

~Dagger~

[Heaven's Cloud]

[color=indigo]I just took a test that told me I favor progress in relationship to tradition. I guess that is relationship to progress in relationship to the aspect of progress, tradition in relationship to progress, or tradition in relationship to the aspect of tradition. At least that would be my guess since it didn?t list categories.

I don?t know how well these tests could measure, or at least whether that measurement would be an accurate judge of bias. I found a lot of the questions to be like playing the shape game, you often times just get confused at which buttons to push, then again, maybe that is your inner psyche at work.

My one objection is that it really doesn?t gauge social interaction. Sure, a person may have an underlying bias towards a person of another ethnicity, but do they act upon that bias? For example, if I am approached by an attractive girl I may be more prone to be talkative and receptive, however, if I was to be approached by a girl that I didn?t find attractive I may have to subconsciously force myself to be talkative and receptive, but by taking that initiative did I not bridge the important part of that gap?

It is easy to say most people are inherently bigoted, even though they don?t admit it. However if people are constantly striving to push past their bigotry (which I think they are with every successive generation) then we are moving forward. In other words traditionally I find people to be bigoted, but I think we are slowly progressing on that tradition and every successive generation is approaching a mindset where acceptance won?t be a virtue it will just be.

Edit: by the way, I am giving myself a pat on the back for tying my results into my overall statement. Hurray for me. [/color]

[eleanor]

[color=darkslateblue] I took the test about gender and liberal arts, and I ended up being told I related math/science to males and liberal arts to females. It's pretty true of me, although it may also be because of the fact that I like liberal arts and I hate math and science, lol. I just love guys. But I guess it is saddening for me, because males usually end up dominating most areas in...um, everything. :/[/color]

[Lord Rannos]

I really think that these tests can't tell you anything much. All it is is testing your hand reflexes. You would learn more about biases from the information it presents you at the beginning. The problem with these tests, at least for me, is that I realte the buttons to the answers, without thinking about what's even on the screen. That may sound like the idea behind the test, but my mind doesn't classify good and young to be the same if their on the same button. Also, they switch it around in the middle, which would naturally set you outside of a "groove" of the buttons you were pressing.

The best way to study biases and prejudices isn't to flash images in front of them and have them press buttons, it's to see how they react when actually placed in a stiuation with old people or black people. If they treat them differently, they're biased. If someone walks into a room with a white guy and a black guy he doesn't know, look at who he talks to. It's that sort of "real-life" test that would produce the most accurate information, but that's just my opinion.

[Solo Tremaine]

[color=#503f86][quote name='Lord Rannos']The best way to study biases and prejudices isn't to flash images in front of them and have them press buttons, it's to see how they react when actually placed in a stiuation with old people or black people. If they treat them differently, they're biased. If someone walks into a room with a white guy and a black guy he doesn't know, look at who he talks to. It's that sort of "real-life" test that would produce the most accurate information, but that's just my opinion.[/quote]I completely agree. While experiments like this may have significance in a laboratory-style setting, trying to determine their ecological validity in real-life scenarios is somewhat different. I'm incredibly sceptical about all these results. To be blunt, it seems far too simple a test to derive complicated theories of prejudice from.

A society that tries to enforce political correctness into every aspect of every life is inherently flawed, because not everyone is the same. That's not to say any type of person is necessarily worse than anyone else, but it's true. There was a debate a few years ago about how it was much harder for women to become firefighters and army cadets than men, and it's because the requirements of physical strength needed to do the job can't be reached by a lot of women because most of them aren't as strong as they should be.

In a similar way, there is always going to be a difference in the way people react to others of different race/gender, etc. A study some years ago into recalling identities showed that people were more likely to remember and identify emotion in a face of their own origin than another (in criminal trials, white people quite frequently mis-identified black or oriental suspects). I don't believe it shows implicit bias if these kinds of reaction are generally instinctive anyway.

Reading the FAQ, one of the things that sprung immediately to mind was that it assumes the biases you develop are formed upon no basis of physical events:

[quote name='That FAQ site']An inclination to believe that the company is guiltless could be a reflection of your positive attitude toward your spouse -- your positive attitude toward the company provides an indirect (implicit) indicator of the positive attitude toward your spouse. (If you believe the company guilty, the marriage may be in difficulty!)[/quote] The belief of whether the company is innocent or guilty would be more likely to spring from the judgement of the events in question, regardless of the emotional position of the husband to the wife. The concept's been over-simplified.

[quote name='IAT FAQ]Try answering this question: [i]Is John Walters the name of a famous person?[/i'] If you suspect yes, and especially if you were more likely to think yes than if the question had been about Jane Walters, you might be indirectly expressing a stereotype that associates the category of male (more than that of female) with fame-deserving achievement.[/quote]Another thing I'm always careful of in studies like this is the researcher's own bias being drawn into the experiment. The quote I took above shows a really decent example of a leading question, phrased in a particular way that will be likely evoke a specific answer. Something like 'Pick out names from the list that you think are famous celebrities' and then have them displayed underneath would be a better way of testing implicit bias than anything else.

It's posible that unconsciously, Banaji has designed the test to bring about these results; it's quite common, especially if they're finded by biased benefactors or have a significant personal motive attached to them. I'm not necessarily implying that she's fixed the results (I don't know enough details of the experiment to know anything conclusively), but these things can have an impact on how results show through.

But that's my two years of Psychology A-Level talking- I've not taken the test myself. And if I did and disagreed with the results, the majority of psychologists would immediately say that I'm in denial. Freud's theories were so revolutionary simply because there was no way of scientifically refuting them, and that's a problem that occurs with a lot of mental science. Since the brain and its activity isn't something you can measure quantitavely, drawing any kind of conclusive result is next to impossible. We can get ideas of how things work, but it's not always the case that it's true for everyone.

EDIT: One final flaw in Banaji's theory.

[QUOTE]"If Europeans had been carted to Africa as slaces, blacks would have the same beliefs about whites as whites now have about blacks."[/QUOTE]But they [i]were[/i]. Around 5 million Britons and Irish were taken off to the North coast of Africa. They'd sail over in tiremes and literally decimate villages, taking everyone they could get their hands on prisoner. For whatever reason, that bit of the slave trade goes completely unnoticed.

And the problem with a lot of these racial studies is that the theories of who hates who is decided by the white majority, assuming that it's pretty much everyone against the whites. But what is often ignored is the racial tensions between different ethnic minorities: the black tribes in Africa have a much deeper and far more violent hatred towards each other than against whites; in the UK most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Indians, West and East Pakistanis but in their own countries they hate each other. The design and basis of experiments on theories not properly understood, whether the results can be rightfully applied or not, is flawed.[/color]

[Pumpkin]

[QUOTE=Lord Rannos]I really think that these tests can't tell you anything much. All it is is testing your hand reflexes. You would learn more about biases from the information it presents you at the beginning. The problem with these tests, at least for me, is that I realte the buttons to the answers, without thinking about what's even on the screen. That may sound like the idea behind the test, but my mind doesn't classify good and young to be the same if their on the same button. Also, they switch it around in the middle, which would naturally set you outside of a "groove" of the buttons you were pressing.

The best way to study biases and prejudices isn't to flash images in front of them and have them press buttons, it's to see how they react when actually placed in a stiuation with old people or black people. If they treat them differently, they're biased. If someone walks into a room with a white guy and a black guy he doesn't know, look at who he talks to. It's that sort of "real-life" test that would produce the most accurate information, but that's just my opinion.[/QUOTE]

[i] I agree with this as well. Although I have to say that no buttons or images could prove how someone feels different towards another race. You don't know how many people are just purposely clicking the wrong ones. Everything could be innacurate. As far as us all go, we act different around people because of our backgrounds, not by images. You might act different towards someone who's black then to a Homosexual. It's sad but its human nature. Still there is a way to get passed that and no test will be accurate while proving this. [/i]

[AzureWolf]

[FONT=book antiqua][SIZE=2][COLOR=blue]Gah, how frustrating. I've tried to take a test since this thread was made, and everytime, something would go wrong. First, I would get to the disclaimer page and then the next page would be an error. Now, I click on a test and just get taken back to the page I was already on! I'm tempted to say that I'm pissed off at this test, but I'm worried that it's part of the test to get very mad at 404 errors and the like.

Anyway, I'm not going to jump the gun at taking sides. These are certified persons who made these tests and did these experiments. Unlike Solo, I don't have enough of a background in psychology to judge for myself if this thing is legit or not (never had a single psychology class, ever. T_T). [B]I'm not saying that anyone here except Solo doesn't have enough knowledge in this wacky stuff to make a conclusion - only that I don't.[/B] As vague and arbitrary as it may seem, it doesn't mean that the method is wrong. Also, judging by reading what little is available, it sounds like a factor of error has already been taken into consideration.

Also, based on reading people's results and the stuff on the website, it sounds like the term "bias" was used just to attract attention. The test itself, however, seems like a predisposition to relate certain things with certain generalizations. Just because categories are used for specific words doesn't explain (to me) how a bias is created. I just don't understand how, just because you immediately think of a guy when you think of a job, creates a bias in a situation.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]