Interesting website
I heard about something called the Implicit Association Test from a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. The book talks about the unconscious judgments and associations (for better or for worse) that allow us to make decisions quickly. The Implicit Association Test (implicit.harvard.edu) measures some of these automatic associations. You have to sort pictures of people and words into the categories "good" and "bad." How fast you accomplish the task measures how strong your automatic associations are.
The book warned that no matter how un-racist you see yourself as, you probably have an automatic association for European Americans--even if you are black--because that's how our culture works. So I was fully prepared for that, especially since I spend little time interacting with African Americans.* Instead, I was surprised that I have "a moderate automatic preferance for African Americans." Who knew? I must have a lot of sources of cultural info that portray blacks in a positive light.
The test also revealed some interesting things about myself. For example, every time the word "failure" came up, I had a hard time sorting it and kept putting it in the "good" category. I guess all the times I've heard that failure is a learning opportunity have really sunk in.
There are other tests involving gender, age, etc.
*You have to answer survey questions about your conscious preferences to go along with the test of unconscious preferences; I answered that I had a preference for European Americans party because I think that is my conscious preference and partly because I didn't want to seem like a hypocrite. It struck me just now how ridiculous that thought is because my answers are a needle in a haystack to the researchers. They aren't going to think I'm a hypocrite, and even if they do, who cares? So it's funny how humans think about how others see them even in an instance where it doesn't matter. But that's an entry for another day.
The book warned that no matter how un-racist you see yourself as, you probably have an automatic association for European Americans--even if you are black--because that's how our culture works. So I was fully prepared for that, especially since I spend little time interacting with African Americans.* Instead, I was surprised that I have "a moderate automatic preferance for African Americans." Who knew? I must have a lot of sources of cultural info that portray blacks in a positive light.
The test also revealed some interesting things about myself. For example, every time the word "failure" came up, I had a hard time sorting it and kept putting it in the "good" category. I guess all the times I've heard that failure is a learning opportunity have really sunk in.
There are other tests involving gender, age, etc.
*You have to answer survey questions about your conscious preferences to go along with the test of unconscious preferences; I answered that I had a preference for European Americans party because I think that is my conscious preference and partly because I didn't want to seem like a hypocrite. It struck me just now how ridiculous that thought is because my answers are a needle in a haystack to the researchers. They aren't going to think I'm a hypocrite, and even if they do, who cares? So it's funny how humans think about how others see them even in an instance where it doesn't matter. But that's an entry for another day.