IAT Summary And Analysis

I read the introduction on the IAT stating that it could reveal some degree of bias. I thought I don’t have any bias about race. I thought I would see more bias when dealing with gender. This research exercise will summarize what I learned from my results of the IAT. The first test I completed was the race test. I thought I did not have any unconscious associations of “good” and “bad” with Black and White people. After doing the test, I found out that I have a slight automatic preference towards White people. I found the results unexpected. I really had no clue that I had a preference. As I read over the test results I was astonished to read that 48% of the test takers had a strong preference for White people whereas only 6% had
a strong preference for Black people. I also completed the gender test. The gender test surprised me in an opposite way. I was taken aback because of my background and the way, I was brought up. Knowing that I stayed home with my children when they were young, like my mother did for me, I thought I would have a strong association with Female and family. The results showed that I had little or no gender association with career or family. To be honest I am not surprised to see that 40% of the test takers had a strong association between male and career. These results showed my implicit (unconscious) attitudes towards race. The feelings I must have towards race do not correspond to my explicit (conscious) attitudes. I believe that my attitudes towards gender are more conscious yet I do not believe that women need to be in the house raising children. At the same time, I do believe that women have a harder time working and raising children than their male counterparts. I believe this is what the text was referring. If one knows, they have these explicit attitudes than they can have better control over the implicit attitudes that show in everyday life.