The other day, a colleague told me about a Harvard behavioral study called Project Implicit that attempts to expose personal bias of various kinds (racial, gender, political, etc.). Evidently it’s generating interest in some unsavory circles; rumor has it the US military and the marketing community are sniffing around. Just what we need is to give them more tools to manipulate us with.
Because it’s a Harvard project, I figured there must be a little more to it than other frivolous and creative online “personality” tests devised by who knows who based on who knows what. So I decided to give it a try.
On the site, you can click the Demonstrations button to try out the tests, or you can click the Research button, which will allow your results to be used in the actual study. I started with Demonstrations and have taken only one Implicit Association Test so far. The instructions are a little confusing at first, but once you start it’s incredibly easy.
If you choose Research, this is what you’ll be doing:
Here you will have the opportunity to assess your conscious and unconscious preferences for over 90 different topics ranging from pets to political issues, ethnic groups to sports teams, and entertainers to styles of music. At the same time, you will be assisting psychological research on thoughts and feelings.
The demo test I took was the one that determines if you have a bias about women and men in scientific and liberal arts fields. I chose this one because I knew I would be OK with the bias that the test revealed. I knew going in that I associated men with science more than I did women. Whether or not that’s a good thing, at least I am aware I have that bias and can live with it.
Sure enough, the test put me in the “strong” bias category, as you can see below.
I could have taken any number of other tests whose results wouldn’t have surprised me: McCain/Obama bias (we know where I stand there), Religion (I’m an atheist and think they’re all equally stupid), Sexuality (no problem with gays, ever), and more.
As I said, I could live with the results of the “Gender – Science” test. So taking that one first was somewhat cowardly, I admit. There are lots of other tests that determine your bias regarding race, weight, physical handicap, age… These are a little scarier. I think I don’t have a bias in these cases, but if I take these tests, I might discover that I have some unconscious prejudices.
It’s an uncomfortable prospect, but being a curious cat, and wanting to be honest with myself, I’m going to give a couple of them a try. But I’m going to register first so that I can contribute to the study.
Let me know if you decide to register and become a statistic too.
I’m going to. I’d never heard of the project before, so I went over and took the same one you did (no bias, me), and now I intend to register and contribute my data.
I think this officially makes you influential.
Hi Rebecca. Thanks about the “influential,” but I think certain products sell themselves! I haven’t done the others yet, but still plan to.