Automatic Prejudice

I can safely say that most people (at least in the U.S.) feel that discrimination on the basis of race or sex is wrong. I agree. Morally, it is not right to refuse to hire a black person. It's wrong to shun Hispanic people. It's wrong to promote a man over a woman simply on the basis of gender.

I can say for certain, though, that all these things happen. In fact, the majority of people have prejudiced automatic thoughts, to their own surprise (and often, they don't even know it). These same people know that it's wrong to feel that way, but it's a common and natural occurrence. Human brains naturally make inferences and desisions, even if we're not aware of them and choose to act the opposite way.

Don't believe me? Can't say I blame you. It's a hard thing to swallow, especially without data to back this up. That's why I've got some data for you.

IATs (Implicit Association Tests), which measure the reaction time of the association with certain groups and positive or negative feelings. The subject who is taking the test gets a situation like this:

Science or Male Liberal Arts or Female

________ sister _______

________ English _______

________ Biology _______

________ uncle _______

The subject must then sort the words into each category as quickly as possible. After they've done this, different catergories are put together, like this:

Science or Female Liberal Arts or Male

________ sister _______
________ English _______
________ Biology _______
________ uncle _______

Most people find it easier to pair science with male and liberal arts with female. The IAT test measures the reaction time for each situation and compares the two, determining the assosiation you have with different groups. Unless you're new to the process and make a lot of errors, IATs prove accurate. Try as hard as you want- it's imposssible to change them through pure will.

Please go to the Demo site from this link: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ There, you can find IATs on: Race (black/white), age, religion, disability, weight, skin tone, sexuality, Asians, Arab-Muslims, Native Americans, assosiations between gender and science, assosiations between gender and career, and a couple of IATs on preference for certain political figures. Plus, after you take a test, you'll be presented with percentages of other people's results.

So, is it all futile? I think not. There is a way to change your IAT. I know, I just said that you couldn't. But read this excerpt from a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is quoting Mahzarin Banaji.

I had a student who used to take the IAT every day. It was the first thing he did, and his idea was just to let the data gather as he went. Then this one day, he got a positive assosiation with blacks. And he said, "That's odd. I've never gotten that before," because we've all tried to change our IAT score and couldn't. But he's a track-and-field guy, and what he realized is that he spent the morning watching the Olympics.

Yes, it can be changed! I think that's the best lesson we can learn from this. Our assosiations build upon our past experiences. If we can change the data that gets put into our brains, we can change our inner feelings about it. I think this holds a lot of promise for the future.

Ylerecnis,

N