Implicit Association Task Paper

Individuals’ mechanical systems for evaluating the world developed over the course of evolutionary history. Such mental operations provide tools for understanding the circumstances, assessing the important concepts, and heartening behavior without having to think or actually thinking at all. These automated preferences are called implicit attitudes.

Implicit bias is bias in one’s judgment or behavior that results from one’s unconscious associations. In order to thoroughly discuss implicit bias, implicit associations must first be examined. Implicit associations refer to one’s unconscious associations between a group and how one feels about said group. For example, a person may subconsciously associate straight people as “normal” and homosexuals as “wrong”. They may have this unconscious association even if they do not express this opinion

Implicit bias plays a significant role in today’s society, whether the members realize it or not. The online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says,” ‘Implicit bias’ is a term of art referring to a relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgement and social behavior” (Brownstein 2015). Implicit biases are often based on stereotypes. Stereotypes, as defined by OpenStax, are “oversimplified ideas about groups of people” (OpenStax College 2015:248). Implicit biases can be problematic for many reasons. One way implicit biases are troublesome is due to the fact that it is unconscious, so it is usually out of a person’s control. People are often unaware of their own and how they use it. A very common way implicit biases are seen in society is through discrimination. Discrimination is defined as “prejudiced action against a group of people” (OpenStax College 2015:248). If a man and a woman are considered as potentials for being hired, the employer may have an implicit bias either towards or against men or women influencing them to hire one over the other based on their gender. This exemplifies a modern concern of gender discrimination as well. Implicit biases can come in many forms from gender, race, weight, sexuality, and many more. These factors can influence an individual’s treatment of others if they have significant bias. In society, these implicit biases can negatively influence minority and other groups and lead to inequality.

discusses the results of a Implicit Association Test which measures a persons automatic association between mental representation of objects in the memory. Nearly 88 percent of the white race who took the Implicit Association Test show inherent racial bias. They have found when white people carry a implicit racial bias that they subconsciously prefer white people over black people in areas such as employment and academic. People don't even realize that they have a subconscious biases against a certain race. Which can affect how they interact with them. America still has a problem with race, The Civil War ended many years ago but the war between races still exist . Once we acknowledge the truth behind inherent racial bias we can move towards

Words were used to describe positive associations or negative associations. The test was based on how people view fat or thin people subconsciously or consciously. Compared to the more personal test regarding racial profiling, this test’s results were not as poignant or one-sided. The general populace in statistics did score that thin people gave a higher positive reaction. However, moderate positive reactions were nearly equal. The absolute neutral position where one feels equal toward either size was high and showed that being fat is becoming more acceptable. The lower end preference of fat over thin was low but it was prevalent enough to record. The test findings were about on par with how society views fat and thin people. With the advent of obesity, tolerance for the obese is becoming acceptable. It is unclear whether this is because this is an emerging social norm due to the rise in obesity or if it is an indication that mainstream media is promoting full-size and plus-size models and outfits that flatter fat people. Regardless, the tests show an increasing tolerance for fat

The Implicit Association Test or IAT is a valuable tool that those in the criminal justice system use; often times during the hiring process candidates will be required to complete the IAT so that hiring officials can see if they have any unconscious bias. The IAT is still relatively new in terms of psychological research only being created in the 1990’s by psychologist Anthony Greenwald (Kaufman, 2011). Individuals who take the race portion of the test are shown pictures of Caucasian and African-American males or females, then are given positive or negative words that they associate with each race as fast as possible. After taking the test it measures the unconscious bias that everyone has deep down (Kaufman, 2011).

Research centers for the study of racial bias have developed experimental studies to help understand how race can, for instance, influence a police officer to shoot an unarmed suspect. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is one of the most commonly used tests for this study. IAT was developed by three scientists, Tony Greenwald (University of Washington), Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University), and Brian Nosek (University of Virginia) (“ProjectImplicit”). Their “Project Implicit” program was designed to identify our societal biases through the association of faces (black and white) with words (good and bad). This program uses a scoring algorithm that can identify those who are faking the test with approximately 75% accuracy (Cvencek et al.).

I consider you have exposed a great discussion. To understand why people behave a certain way we use something called attributional processes. Frequently, we tend to leap to conclusions that people’s behavior is due to some characteristics of their personality rather than to some aspects of the circumstances in which we are. Stereotypes are dispositional negative attributions, (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2007). Stanger and Crandal (2000) consider that it seems that stigma develops out of an initial, collectively held motivation to avoid danger followed often by an exaggerated perception of features that promotes threat and accompanied by social sharing of these perceptions with others. What is more, they conclude that stigmas for the most part

The proposed study aims to investigate the relationship between implicit prejudices and their effect on perception and judgment of others. Individuals generally hold specific prejudices towards their ingroups and outgroups and these can be deliberately or subconsciously expressed through explicit or implicit attitudes, respectively. Learning more about the relationship between the subconscious prejudicial attitudes people hold and how these affect perceptions of others is important if a better understanding of intergroup relations is to be made. More specifically, and relevant to the study at hand, investigating implicit prejudices White individuals have and how these affect their

In the present study, the results of the fat-thin Implicit Association Test (IAT) were compared with the results of explicit surveys in ten Indiana University undergraduates.

For the implicit association test (IAT), I took the weight test. The result from the weight test result said that I preferred thin people slightly over overweight people which was in line with what I felt. My bias which favors thin over husky people is probably due to the influence of every social media outlet in America. No matter where people look, whether it is at magazines, commercials, ads, movies, social trends, television shows, or cartoons, a majority of the time only thin people appear. Social media constantly bombards my eyes and thoughts with positive connotations of skinny people, which might have led to my unconscious favoring of a lean body type versus an overweight body type. According to Brian A. Nosek and Rachel G. Riskand, even a brief exposure to an image would cause observers to have an implicit bias towards the image which is moderately scary. This means that people with power like policymakers, employers, and the police can be easily form an implicit bias with the chance of affecting their behavior

During class, we had to complete a weight-IAT, which looked at our implicit biases about weight. Although I explicitly did not prefer thinner individuals, my results showed that I had a moderate implicit bias for thinner individuals. If I view obesity as a negative attribute, I may be unwelcoming, unfriendly, or have an overall negative attitude towards my obese patients. This could make my future patients feel uncomfortable, undervalued, and stigmatized. Additionally, the negative implicit bias towards obsess individuals appears to be associated with societal implicit biases that obese individuals are lazy and are not working hard enough to lose weight (Anselmi, 2013). Based off of these possible implicit biases, I could subconsciously think that my obese patients will not adhere to treatment plans. This doubt would come through in my attitude, body language, and how/what I say, which could decrease the patient’s motivation or their self-confidence in their ability to follow treatment plans. Overall, the negative impact of implicit bias on doctor-patient relationships can lead to a reduction in care-seeking behaviors, adherence to treatment plans, trust in the physician, and overall stratification with health

When it comes to weight, I guess I’m neutral about fat and thin people, but carrying out the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the test result suggests that I have a strong automatic preference for fat people compared to thin people.

In “The Stereotype Threat Hypothesis: An Assessment from the Philosopher’s Armchair, for the Philosopher’s Classroom” Gina Schouten discusses ways to improve the gender gap within the profession of philosophy. She believes that a disproportionate amount of women do not continue in philosophy after taking an introductory level course, and thus focuses her attention on ways to remedy this problem. The gender gap has been well studied in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and Schrouten believes that some of the research can be applied to the discipline of philosophy. Stereotype Threat Hypothesis (STH) is one account that is purported to explain the differences in the number of men and women in mathematics. Schrouten

The Implicit Association Test was established by Anthony Grenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek. This test assesses your attitude or views towards a certain subject, it is your automatic response on an unconscious level. The Test results you recieve may be the complete opposite of your conscious beliefs and views. You have two levels of thinking your conscious and unconscious level, in your conscious level you have your beliefs and values that control our behavior deliberately, then your unconscious level which is our immediate automatic response to something. The