Sean C Scott

Implicit Association Test

University of Phoenix

Implicit Association Test

The Implicit Association Test’s (IAT) that participated in were the one on Race and

another on Skin-Tone. I found both test’s to very interesting but lacked in my opinion the

true questions needed to accurately determine a person’s preferences on the test topics. I

think test should have gone a little deeper into how a person feels towards the opposite

race based on common stereo types and misconceptions that usually bring out the true

feeling about the opposite race rather it be positive or negative.

As Far as the test reveling something about myself that I wasn’t aware of before in

my opinion failed to do that because of the vagueness of the questions being asked. For

example the final result page of the test suggesting me to having little to no preference

between dark and light skinned people which in some cases could be true but failing to

revile the true fact of my very strong preference towards light skinned woman to a dark

skinned woman. I think the test should have asked some question on the bases of gender

to determine if that really played an important role in discovering hidden biases towards

male or female when it came to skin-tone. In my opinion I think part of our biases come

from the way we were brought up as children from pass experiences and cultures of our

parents and family that influenced our actions based upon the prejudices we develop as a

result of how society tend to group or characterize people according to their race, creed,

color, and religious believes.

Implicit Association Test

I think the best way to change or minimize the types of biases we have in society is

through social education that addresses the main reasons people create biases. Start by

asking the tuff questions that most people try to avoid answering in an attempt to

cover the true feelings they may have or may not know they had and focus more on

those issues rather than taking part in some generalized assessment test that only offers a

snap shot of what the real issues surrounding biases are and the fact that most people

tend to falsify the test questions which effect the overall assessment. But I guess when we

look at people and how we live in today’s society in my opinion we may never really

know the real reason why we create and tailor our lives around our own individual biases.

So for that reason we must continue our efforts in educating our children in hopes they

develop a more positive outlook on our society that may one day change or minimize the

way biases influence our livelihood.