Short Essay: Race

Background:

Our subconscious minds are influenced by racist stereotypes and negative racial attitudes that are consistently reinforced in media, politics, and the society at large. Findings from the widely-used Implicit Association Test (IAT) shows us that racial bias remains widespread, despite the popularity of egalitarianism.

Task:

Use the link below to and go to “take a test”.  Select the ” Race (‘Black – White’ IAT)”.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

After you finish taking the test, you will be directed to a “You have completed the study” page. This page contains your results, as well as some general information about the test. DO NOT CLOSE OR EXIT OUT OF THIS PAGE. You will need it to answer some of your discussion questions.
Discussion Questions:

1. Were you surprised by your IAT score? Why or why not? To what extent did your IAT score change your view of yourself? (Use 1 paragraph to answer this question)

2. Before taking the test, people (including you) were asked about their attitudes toward African Americans and Europeans. On the final page you are shown a graph of these results. What does this graph reveal about everyone’s results? Do people’s results match the attitudes they reported before taking the test or not? If not, what does this reveal about implicit biases? (Use 1 paragraph to answer this question)

3. Can the order in which a person takes the test, referred to as “order effects,” influence their results? If so, how big is this influence? What strategies do the test makers use to minimize this “order effects”? (Use 1 paragraph to answer this question)

Instructions:

Good essays in this class will balance personal opinion with facts. If you state something as a fact, please use a credible source for the information. Common sense is not the same as fact. Please look at the example below to see how to go about these types of statements.

Stated as Fact: “Children with divorced parents are more likely to suffer from anxiety” (Sociology Today: 2020).

Stated as Opinion: “From what I have seen, children with divorced parents are more likely to suffer from anxiety.”