The First Test I Was The Race

I survey the body language, facial expressions and the possible words or phrases that can be interpreted more than one way. Because of this course I am more tolerant to people who are prejudiced. The most personally influential chapter to me was chapter two in the assigned textbook. The chapter introduced me to how stereotypes are formed and the consequences of categorizing people. Studies show that in order to simplify the workload of the brain, we place people into social categories based on previous experience and peer learning. “Social categorization involves thinking about people primarily as members of social groups rather than as individuals” (Blaine, 22).I found that I engage in this practice, but the automatic groups do not usually have negative stereotypes attached; When I meet a negative exception, they are then sorted into a subgroup.The second most influential chapter …..Chapter four of the textbook details the components of prejudices. the stereotypes and instances of prejudice enabled me

Generally we want to approach decisions with placing ourselves in another’s shoes, however, seeing past how we view ourselves within our own racial group can again lead to stereotyping behavior.

The definition of prejudice may vary among the different psychologist but most will agree that prejudice has something to do with prejudgment, typically negative, about a group. (Fiskie, 1998; Jones, 1997; Nelson, 2002 ). According to Plous (2003), Prejudice is not exactly considered an opinion, but an attitude which includes feeling such as hating the group, rather than believing they’re bad. Within psychology, we can link prejudice with discrimination and stereotyping (Plous, 2003). Although each may go together, they can be done separately. Prejudice and discrimination are most likely absent in a positive stereo type (Plous, 2013). For example describing an ethnic group as “family oriented”. Stereo typing does little to no harm without discrimination or prejudice. A generalized form of prejudice may lack discrimination and stereo types, such as being against foreigners.

The First test I took was the Race (‘Black –White ’IAT). In my opinion, the test was unnecessary. The IAT fails to incorporate life experience, it is computer based which means it is error prone. You may have a preference towards white or black people, but that doesn’t make you racist. Your preference may stem from the way you were raised and demographic you are a part of. The results of my Race IAT stated “Your data suggest no automatic preference between Black people and White people”. The results were accurate with what I predicted. Growing up, I went to a predominantly white elementary school, so many of my peers were Caucasian. We moved when I was 11, so the middle school I attended was predominantly African American., and my high school

I was curious to take the IAT racial test because I had never heard about it before. After taking it, I did some research and I found interesting explanations about what it broadly measures as well as opinions from different researchers about its use and accuracy. At first, I was a little bit scared to take it because I was afraid to discover myself having strong automatic associations that I was unaware of. When I consciously think about my values and what I stand for, I consider myself as an open-minded person who is not racist and values the globalization and multicultural mixer. However, my results suggested a moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American. Honestly, I was surprised when I saw this answer

The invention of the IAT test by Anthony Greenwald has made it possible to delve into the unknown areas of one’s brain. This is done by quickly asking the subject to answer questions and then the IAT determines which characteristics the subject associates with certain groups of people. Some of the categories addressed by the test include race, gender, weight, and status. Prior to taking an IAT I was aware biases were present in my brain, but one test result in particular surprised me the most, the gender career IAT. After receiving feedback I was forced to reflect on this bias I was not so strongly aware of before and realized it has the capability to affect my future.

The IAT results measure implicit attitudes and stereotypes towards a group of people. They also measure the bonding between the associations and concepts. For example, I was quick at categorizing when both European Americans

I think that the Race IAT was calculated based on how quickly you were able to correctly associate the given picture with the race and positive/negative word. For instance, the test likely recorded the average time it took me to hit the ‘E’ or ‘I’ key based on if black faces and negative words were associated versus if black faces and positive words were associated. If it took longer for me to hit the correct key with the black face/positive word than it did the black face/negative word, it is likely that there may be some sort of implicit bias against the former association. After I received my result, I was initially surprised that I was slightly preferring the black/negative association versus the black/positive association. However, after

I took the Skin-tone test. My results described me as an “Automatic preference for light skinned people over dark skinned people”. I believe my results are wrong, because I don’t have a preference when it comes down to skin colors. Skin colors don’t really matter to me. I’m going to like a person no matter what he or she skin tone is. My results are telling me that I’m choosing light skinned people over dark skinned people. I found my results to be very strange and crazy, because I’m African America. However, you do have people in this world we live in, that have a preference in what type of skin tones they prefer to interact with.

As we know, the IAT uses reaction times to give a conclusion about possible underlie biases of an individual may have. The test may ask people click on the word "good" when they see a white face and "opposite" click on the word "bad" whenever they see a black face. After that, they will switch the words

2. In sorting people, I got 5/20 correct, and to my surprise the most obvious people the “stereotypes” weren’t what I thought they were. The ones that didn’t seem to be too difficult were correct but the others that I believed were pretty easy weren’t. Its surprising that we want to level someone a certain race because of their features when in reality it shouldn’t be based on that. It goes deeper than that.

The study used double dissociation designs, where implicit evaluation and stereotyping were assessed separately to determine their effects on race biased behaviour, which implies high predictive validity, as does the use of the IAT in proving that instrumental forms of race bias are the product of implicit stereotyping, and consummatory forms the product of implicit evaluation. Contrarily, in the second study, participants recorded their feelings towards an African American student, followed by completing evaluative and stereotyping IATs; this raises the issue of causal inference due to demand characteristics, compromising

There has been decades of research examining what it referred to as “automatic categorization” (Nelson, 2005. p. 207). Researchers describe this as an essential trait in humans that is a primal response to physical characteristics, such as race, gender, and age, that automatically prompts emotional responses and prejudices. This type of categorization sets the

IAT is an assessment test that test you on different topics to see how you feel towards, and your beliefs about the topics. I chose to take the age and skin tone assessment, but I did not care to much for the tests. It did cause me to view myself a little differently, because I did not feel that the results were the way I felt about the subjects. I did not have that much trust in the test.

As an attempt to gain further insight into how I unconsciously associate people of different races and my expectations of how they would react under the same situations, I decided to answer the “Try it!” exercise on page 417.