Implicit Bigotry Test

[Hadoblado]

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

This site tests implicit association between negativity/positivity, and a minority of your choice. I found it very interesting as it revealed where I am on the bigot scale in regard to the general population. I demonstrate a slight preference for white people over black people, and for straight people over gay people. I haven't tested any others yet but I likely will later.

I should probably emphasise that it is the implicit association that is measured.

 

[snafupants]

I took this test for my sister two years back. Apparently I'm a raging racist inside.

 

[Hadoblado]

I just took the gender-career test and apparently women should just stay the fuck home. I'm in the top 25% for woman/family-man/career association. It's certainly an eye opener.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Eh...
Seems like bunk to me.

... I really dislike their word choice and presumptive associations.
Primes you for binary thought.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

In case I forget about this thread and the website:
gender-career test

Your data suggest little or no association between Female and Male with Science and Liberal Arts.

Will try the others later maybe.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

It said I have a preference for straight people.

 

[crippli]

Your Result
Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Straight People compared to Gay People

--
Doubt it. I think this test measures more what half of the brain is more active.

 

[Hadoblado]

If that were the case people would be getting approximately equal numbers for prejudice against advantaged/disadvantaged groups. I am yet to see anyone in favour of blacks, gays, obese people, or the disabled.

I have doubts about the interchangeability between pairing time and prejudice, but the results are interesting.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I tested in moderate favor of homosexuals and disabled persons.

It doesn't know what it's testing (familiarity with subgroups and knowledge of common prejudices if anything) It's relying on the fact that you're afraid of being a secret sexist/racist/etc. to give it credibility.

 

[Hadoblado]

Really? Would you say that these results do not at all represent your implicit or explicit attitude towards these groups? Even if this test is giving you unexpected results, you may just be wrong about your implicit attitudes, or you could simply be part of the minority who display a non-normative prejudice. From the chart at the end of the test you can see that at least some people show the inverse tendency.

I agree with you that familiarity and knowledge play a clear part (note: these two things are also negatively correlated with prejudice), I had difficulty with the religion appraisal one because I lump all religious jargon together under religion, not under specific religions.

I also think that association discrepancies are not necessarily prejudice. I might just associate white people with being good, as I have had very little contact with people of different origin. It could also be a second degree association: disabled person = disadvantaged, disadvantaged = negative attribute. I sure as hell don't want to be a quadriplegic!

I might be doing a project on this in about a month, so I should be able to bring a more in depth analysis to the table then. I may have over stated my confidence in this test, looking through my prior posts my conclusions are no the least bit tentative. This is not an accurate representation of my understanding, and while I shy away from conclusions of it being an entirely invalid test, I do not have faith in it's validity beyond my rational understanding.

 

[travelnjones]

To ask a more general question is Bigotry bad? I know we have been taught it is but I am beginning to feel there is a general group think mind set that wants to decry anyone who says "No" to something as evil.

but for bigotry specifically I am beginning to wonder about it. I am going to expand a to the ridiculous here but bear with me.

I want to support my family. This is a value. I will support my family to the exclusion of others. I would feel you are not a good person if you would not support your family.

I want to support my friends. I will support my friends to the exclusion of anyone other than my family. Again disloyalty is very negative for me.

I want to support my community. This benefits me by employing cops and firemen. I don't have any benefit from supporting other places. Safe or no I probably wont visit unless they have something drawing other visitors and generating revenue.

I want my nation to succeed. Other nations are competitors at best and enemies at worst. Support should start at home.

Basically doesn't supporting the fat cats in my own nation, community, etc benefit me by trickling down cash in my own city or state? Deciding how and where I spend my money or donations benefits me. That could be seen as bigoted and I really question how deciding who I help first is bad.

 

[EditorOne]

^ Interesting.
I think bigotry is the active dark side of discrimination, using "discriminating" in its value-neutral form as the process of making a distinction. We make distinctions all the time, starting with the distinction between things that are dangerous and things that are not. The process can be misapplied., When we use it on categories of qualities rather than specifics, the tendency to broadly assign characteristics to the category can lead us into factual error and we can compound it by making assumptions and decisions based on those errors. Some assume 80 percent of all male professional dancers on Broadway are gay. If that is not the case, those people may accidentally commit a social gaffe interacting with someone who is a dancer but not gay. And that would reveal him or her to be guilty of false stereotyping, but it's not active bigotry. in my little ordering of the social cosmos, without some hostility toward dancers. It is at most a potential breeding ground for hostility.
If you're aware you have what amount to irrational, no-facts beliefs toward classes of people, but no compulsion to act on those beliefs, you're quarantining the bad stuff. And that's a good thing.

Or, more judgmentally, Buster Kilrain: "Anyone who judges by the group is a peewit."

 

[Hadoblado]

@travelnjones
I think you are being overly cautious, but your points are correct. Supporting the people that support you is a natural and selfish desire which is separate from prejudice. When I deliberately avoid supporting a community I am discriminating against it.

@EditorOne
I too prefer the value neutral definition of discrimination. Unfortunately, the gamechanger social psychologists had a very different idea.

 

[walfin]

Apparently I have a strong preference for straights and a preference for Asians (Asians>Blacks>Hispanics>Whites).

So I'm a racist gay-basher. Whatever.

 

[crippli]

If that were the case people would be getting approximately equal numbers for prejudice against advantaged/disadvantaged groups. I am yet to see anyone in favour of blacks, gays, obese people, or the disabled.

I have doubts about the interchangeability between pairing time and prejudice, but the results are interesting.

What I felt was that the first rounds was easy with no mistakes. But when things was switched around it became more difficult. As the first round stick abit more, and perhaps influences the results throughout the test. Also right and left hand are supposedly controlled by left and right brain half. Maybe one should do the test only with one hand, or better yet, use the same finger, although one will be slower.

I suspect these two factors will influence the result. And make it more about motoric ability then bigotry.

But I take the numbers seriously, and will look into if I am bigoted or motorically challenged.

 

[Hadoblado]

Okay so 6 years later this is still my favourite thing. In fact, this stuff is a big part of my current views on how people work.

I took the gender test and scored a moderate association between men/science and women/humanities. Not too surprising. I have a conscious bias for this. Engineering for instance is like 95% men.

I also took the white and aborigine valence test and scored moderately positive towards aborigines when compared to whites. I'm white, and the bias typically swings the other way, so this is kind of surprising. That said, I do think black people tend to be more charismatic?
Also, I don't really want to do the test again, but I'm pretty sure more of the blacks were smiling than the whites. This would bias results when the associative words were things like 'joy' and 'laughter'.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I did the happiness/sadness test
Your implicit data suggest that you strongly identify more with HAPPY than SAD.

edit: wtf.. now when I click the link this test is no longer there

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Gender -Science:

Your data suggest little or no automatic association between Female and Male with Science and Liberal Arts..

Boom. That's because I'm a feminist, baby!

 

[Black Rose]

m

 

[Hadoblado]

Woah dude I did two. You need to settle down maaart, seven is plenty.

 

[Black Rose]

I didn't even get the results back.

 

[Black Rose]

I just now did all 7 randomly and they gave me no results.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

There was so much bigotry in your scores that the test malfunctioned

 

[washti]

moderate automatic preference for Gay people over Straight people.


moderate automatic preference for Christianity over Islam.


strong automatic association for Male with Science and Female with Liberal Arts.


no automatic preference between Dark Skinned People and Light Skinned People

I'm too gay to be feminist.

 

[cheese]

Your implicit data suggest that you strongly identify more with HAPPY than SAD.

This was a welcome surprise (years of depression, currently in a downswing).

Spoiler

I actually found the test physically painful to answer; my results were obvious to me seconds into taking the test. Pairing sad words with 'me' took me several seconds to answer because it was so hard to break the association and my brain felt like it was wading through molasses, whereas pairing happy words with 'me' was instantaneous. It just seemed so obvious and natural that 'happy' should be with 'me'. Perhaps I had a bias for seeing 'happy' as on the right side of an imaginary spectrum ('me' was always on the right side of the screen). If they switched 'me' and 'not me' that might've shown something different.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Thin people over Fat people

Quite true I'm afraid

Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Young people over Old people.

Also true, although I prefer milfs over young girls.

 

[Black Rose]

how the heck are you people getting results back?

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

how the heck are you people getting results back?

they just show up at the end

 

[Hadoblado]

Woohoo Cheese that's great!

I wonder if you have positive associations for other things? Like, I think my self reference isn't too bad atm (I'll check later), but the negative things about stuff around me still jumps out, albeit less than it used to.

I just realised I've been using the Australian version: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/australia/

Regarding the test itself, I've been having some discussions about its veracity. In particular, I think individual's results are not particularly reliable, but population level trends are still likely pretty useful (a soft rule I think applies to most pen and paper tests). The wiki article goes over a bunch of the limitations: Here

Also, while the title I put up was a bit loaded, I don't think this test actually measures bigotry. Rather, I think it more likely it measures the imprint of the environment you're exposed to. It doesn't measure the result of your actions at all, which is far more important.

@AK I'm not sure what's going on for you. I'm pretty sure my results just pop up after each test.

 

[The Gopher]

Your data suggest no automatic preference between Straight people and Gay people.

Well that would make sense.

Also I took the republican and democrat text by accident. but the issue is I didn't know if the elephant or donkey was pub or dem so I think I confused it.

 

[Niclmaki]

Neat. I’m not sure if people care about ALL my results but I’m gonna post em.

Your data suggest a moderate automatic association for Male with Career and Female with Family.

Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Young people over Old people.

Here is your result:
Your data suggest a strong automatic association for American with Native American and Foreign with White American.
(Being native I kind of expected this. But I’m Canadian not American so it messed with my head a little. They’re all foreign!)

 

[cheese]

Also, while the title I put up was a bit loaded, I don't think this test actually measures bigotry. Rather, I think it more likely it measures the imprint of the environment you're exposed to.

Yeah, this makes way more sense. Saying it's measuring your personal bias/deep-rooted beliefs is jumping a few steps ahead imo (not that you were doing that, but I know some people who might).

I wonder if you have positive associations for other things? Like, I think my self reference isn't too bad atm (I'll check later), but the negative things about stuff around me still jumps out, albeit less than it used to.

Good to hear! I think by nature I'm fairly positive in general, but when I've been down for a long time it can seem like I've fundamentally changed. Mood really does colour things, and this isn't at all obvious till the depression lifts. Much of what you might think is your personality or unrelenting insight into the true (repulsive) nature of the world/people may just be depression. It'll be interesting to see what you're like if you stay out of the woods for a while.