While reading Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book, Blink, I learned that sometimes we have subconscious biases that are not exactly politically correct. A research team at Harvard University has come up with what they call the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short. The IAT measures implicit attitudes and beliefs that people are either unwilling or unable to report.
Take the test and it may surprise you what your subconscious mind thinks about:
- Age (‘Young – Old’ IAT)
- Gender – Science
- Race (‘Black – White’ IAT)
- Presidents (‘Presidential Popularity’ IAT)
- Sexuality (‘Homosexual – Straight’ IAT)
- Gender – Career
- Arab-Muslim (‘Arab Muslim – Other People’ IAT)
- Weight (‘Fat – Thin’ IAT)
- Religion (‘Judaism – Other Religions’ IAT)
- Disability (‘Disabled – Abled’ IAT)
- Native American (‘Native – White American’ IAT)
- Asian American (‘Asian – European American’ IAT)
- Weapons (‘Weapons – Harmless Objects’ IAT)
- Skin-tone (‘Light Skin – Dark Skin’ IAT)
I took the tests both on Age and Gender and it was calculated that I do not appear to have either an age bias or a gender bias. Sometimes a person’s results can indicate a bias and in retaking the test it may still be hard to correct that bias even though you know you have it and are trying to avoid it from showing.