Let me begin with thanks and a Hat Tip to Joanne Dixon, who emailed me a link to this article on the science of prejudice. I took the Implicit Association Test for race, and quite frankly, I was shocked the results. After thinking about the results in light of my own background, they made more sense and I’ll explain why.
I’m sitting in the soft-spoken cognitive neuroscientist‘s spotless office nestled within New York University’s psychology department, but it feels like I’m at the doctor’s, getting a dreaded diagnosis. On his giant monitor, Amodio shows me a big blob of data, a cluster of points depicting where people score on the Implicit Association Test. The test measures racial prejudices that we cannot consciously control. I’ve taken it three times now. This time around my uncontrolled prejudice, while clearly present, has come in significantly below the average for white people like me.
You think of yourself as a person who strives to be unprejudiced, but you can’t control these split-second reactions.
That certainly beats the first time I took the IAT online, on the website UnderstandingPrejudice.org. That time, my results showed a "strong automatic preference" for European Americans over African Americans. That was not a good thing to hear, but it’s extremely common—51 percent of online test takers show moderate to strong bias.
Taking the IAT, one of the most popular tools among researchers trying to understand racism and prejudice, is both extremely simple and pretty traumatic. The test asks you to rapidly categorize images of faces as either "African American" or "European American" while you also categorize words (like "evil," "happy," "awful," and "peace") as either "good" or "bad." Faces and words flash on the screen, and you tap a key, as fast as you can, to indicate which category is appropriate…
Inserted from <Mother Jones>
To take the test yourself, click the IAT link above or click here. Click through to the list of tests, and choose the test for race near the bottom of the list. How did you do?
My test showed that I have a preference for African Americans. I was shocked because I am white guy, who grew up in an environment of extreme racism. To this day, I catch myself thinking stereotypically against minorities on very rare occasions. I correct myself whenever that happens. So I was expecting a bias toward Caucasians. But I think I understand it.
I grew up one block from the bay and two from the ocean, so I don’t remember a time I wasn’t in the water. One Saturday, when I was eight or nine years old, I was diving for muscles in the bay. I stayed down a bit to long and came up fast right under the boat and hit my head. I knocked myself cold. Another young boy, fishing for flounder nearby, heard the collision, dove in and pulled me out. I quickly regained consciousness, and realized that he had saved my life. His name was Bobby. I took him home to meet my family. I was not allowed to have friends in without permission, so he waited outside, and I went to talk to my father. He wanted to meet the boy that had saved my life. It did not occur to me to tell him Bobby was black. My father took one look at him, got red in the face, and bellowed, “Get that dirty little n*gg*r out of my house!” I was mortified. Bobby just shook it off. We remained secret friends for years, and then, open friends, until he was killed in Vietnam. My father created a civil rights activist that day.
How this relates to the test is that my rejection of the kind of racism my father displayed is so strong, that I unconsciously show preference to black people, as an overcompensation for the tiny remnant of prejudice that surfaces, ever so briefly, every two or three years. It may also be compensating for the racism in our society.
Was your test what you expected, or did you gain insight into yourself from it?
13 Responses to “Are You Racist?”
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Sorry TC – dyslexia and migraine mean I must come back to this (Dislexia lures, KO!).
I was born in Macon Georgia. We were dirt poor. My 2 brothers and I grew up in Baxley Ga (pop 200) it was very small. I am white I grew up with white people and I had no idea that skin color was a way to judge a person. So this test shows just how lucky I was to not be under a racist rule
Your results are reported below:
Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between African American and European American.
OH Pat I hope you feel better soon ;0
Had several early errands today and so I am "batting cleanup" on this story. I hope and think that Lona is right that it may actually be exposure primarily being measured, since my result was "Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American." My exposure to people of color has been minimal, to my regret. Such exposure as I have had has been highly positive. I surely understand Chris Mooney's feelings.
I noticed after the test was over they asked whether I thought being right- or left – handed made a difference. I wondered that while I was taking the test, but I have no data. They don't seem to be gathering any data on that either. Too bad.
Whe I was working on my MBA I did a project on bias between work groups. Bias is difficult to measure, but not so difficult I couldn't see some tribalism even here.
I had a "slight automatic preference for European Americans" (or I think that's how they worded it).
But DO think the order that they first present sets has an impact. You get conditioned to doing it one way and then with NO transition adjustments, they change things 180 degrees.
Still in all, it was entertaining and interesting. But their estimates on how long it would take were WAY too short. Took about 50% longer on each section than they said it would.
I agree with you, there was not any transition, and I am not at all dexterous.
Very interesting!
Results: Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for African American compared to European American.
As compared to the US, Canada when I was growing up was majority white bread, especially when I was in elementary school in a small southern Ontario city. There were a lot of Italians and Hungarians in the neighbourhood which was very evident by the number of grape boxes out for garbage pick up during wine making season. In highschool in Metro Toronto, diversity was greater and one of my best friends was black from Jamaica. My first date was with her cousin, also from Jamaica. When I was in elementary school, we had people from all over the world come to stay with us . . . Gincie from Australia, Mrs Baba from India just to name two. My maternal grandfather was also a significant influence on me . . . he was a racist much like your father TC.
I like to see people for who they are, not what they are. I don't care about skin colour, religion etc. I care about their hearts!
My niece has 2.9 children (#3 will be born later this month or in January) and they are bi-racial, dad being from the Caribbean and mom being caucasian (half Italian with some English, French and German from her dad, my brother). When I look at those kids, I don't see a bi-racial child. I see an energetic bundle of love!
Sounds like the family I married into where one grandmother was Cherokee, stepfather was Mexican, and sister-in-law married the son of a black preacher and had two beautiful daughters…my school classes had diversity pre-k through 4th, none 5th-7th and by high school Anglos were the minority…lots of good friendships where I learned about different cultural and faith traditions.
My results were that I had "a slight preference for European Americans". See my reply to Nameless. I have lived almost my entire life around African Americans and have been taught all my life that all people are the same. I am embarrassed a little, but I imagine that since I am almost all white,(my grandmother was one quarter Cherokee) that is understandable. I have had friends of all colors all my life. I would hate for them to see these results.
Thanks all. I think it's normal to show preference with the familiar over the unfamiliar. Then Reoublicans play on the tendency to fear the unknown.
Fell asleep at desk. Just woke up.
I think my lean toward African American comes from the constant barrage (news) of injustices done to African Americans. As a native Oregonian, I've lived most of my life in a pretty white environment. Apparently that didn't lean me toward white preference. I'm so disgusted with the primarily white conservatives, I've become suspicious of any whites I don't know personally. Too many whites I know personally (family unfortunately) are conservative bigots.
Your results are reported below:
Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for African American compared to European American.
It's either my Brain Injury or my not understanding the test…?¿