Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
I know I shouldn't have, but it was irresistible. I tried the Project Implicit test, the one that's supposed to reveal your secret racial preferences. It seems I have them, but not in the way you'd guess:
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You have completed the Light Skin - Dark Skin IAT.
Your Result:
Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Dark Skin compared to Light Skin.
Thank you for your participation. Just below is a breakdown of the scores generated by others. Most respondents find it easier to associate Dark Skin with Bad and Light Skin with Good compared to the reverse.
Huh. How do you explain this? Do you think it's just that I've been living for a long time in a country where most people are more dark-skinned than me? Or is it something else?
I sure didn't think I was in any way unusual like this.
I guess I'm glad that I have scientific proof that I'm not a racist, but something in me says the test is flawed--can't put my finger on what it is--can you?
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
I made it partway through, and said "to ____ with this? Does this mean I'm a racist?
May '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
George Savage: The test begins by training the naive user to select light-equals-good and dark-equals-bad. Only then is the subject asked to reverse the just-learned association. Persistence of the initial pattern is then taken as evidence of an automatic racial preference, when in it is nothing more than training bias.
Why don't the authors invert the initial sequence so that a naive subject learns dark-equals-good finger twitches before reversing the association? · 1 hour ago
George, when I took it the Black-Good and White-Bad categories were presented before the Black-Bad and White-Good. I came out with no apparent preference, but I definitely noticed that it required a lot more concentration and deliberate effort in the first set than the second.
Aug '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
I wonder if it makes a difference that the photos are in black & white. Would the results be different if they were colour photographs?
Colour photographs, after all, would be various shades of brown vs. various shades of pink, rather than uniform dark grey vs. uniform light grey.
Maybe the test is measuring how the brain registers the tone of the photographs, rather than the colour of the people depicted.
Edited on April 11, 2012 at 9:54pmRe: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Misthiocracy
George Savage: The test begins by training the naive user to select light-equals-good and dark-equals-bad. Only then is the subject asked to reverse the just-learned association. Persistence of the initial pattern is then taken as evidence of an automatic racial preference, when in it is nothing more than training bias.
Why don't the authors invert the initial sequence so that a naive subject learns dark-equals-good finger twitches before reversing the association?
The FAQ claims that the ordering is randomized for each test. · 1 hour ago
If that is actually the case, then I would be intrigued to see how the initial order influences the final result, especially for naive subjects.
My hypothesis is that the initial order is the strongest predictor of the result, not some latent "preference" for skin tone. A further hypothesis: the result would be unchanged if something racially neutral--say, geometric shapes--was substituted for skin tone.
In short: not only worthless but damaging to the extent people take this sort of thing seriously.
Nov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
I did the Native-White one to be different, and:
I don't really know what that is supposed to mean.
All I know is that I really hate timed button-press games. I wish all quicktime events like that in video games would go to the same hell with that ET Atari game.
Edited on April 11, 2012 at 10:06pmSep '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Your data suggest little to no difference in implicit preference between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama.
I took the test honestly and did my best. I don't think I have a "preference" for black people. I don't think I'm racist and I think Derb was perfectly justified in writing what he wrote. Just sayin'
Nov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
I can speak with authority on this.
I was part of the research group who created the IAT.
I did my PhD dissertation on the IAT.
The meaning and significance of the IAT is a complex and hotly debated topic.
But here's a straightforward and I hope balanced account of it, accessible to laypeople.
http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm/volumeID_21-editionID_164-ArticleID_1396-getfile_getPDF/thepsychologist%5C0908gregg.pdf
I have recently conducted a study which calls into question whether the effect typically obtained on the Race IAT among whites reflects an implicit prejudice liable to translate into discrimination. I'll describe in a separate post shortly.
Edited on April 11, 2012 at 11:25pmNov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Somewhat slicker IAT demos are also available here:
http://www.implicitresearch.co.uk/test/
Nov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
In many studies, they invert the sequence order. The effect is sometimes moderated by the order, but is not in general dependent upon it.
Your hypothesis for the effect is a very common one among test-takers. However, it is in general false.
George Savage: The test begins by training the naive user to select light-equals-good and dark-equals-bad. Only then is the subject asked to reverse the just-learned association. Persistence of the initial pattern is then taken as evidence of an automatic racial preference, when in it is nothing more than training bias.
Why don't the authors invert the initial sequence so that a naive subject learns dark-equals-good finger twitches before reversing the association? · 2 hours ago
Nov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
The IAT does not permit one to differentiate the one from the other. That's one of its limitations.
Nov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Generally, the Race IAT works across a variety of stimuli, both words or pictures.
Interestingly, IAT effects are generally bigger for words than for pictures. No one is quite sure why.
Misthiocracy: I wonder if it makes a difference that the photos are in black & white. Would the results be different if they were colour photographs?
Colour photographs, after all, would be various shades of brown vs. various shades of pink, rather than uniform dark grey vs. uniform light grey.
Maybe the test is measuring how the brain registers the toneof the photographs, rather than the colourof the people depicted. · 54 minutes ago
Edited 50 minutes ago
Sep '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
I'm enjoying a little vacation with my family on an island in South Carolina. We're hanging out with lots of white folks on the beach and at the pool and everyone around seems to want darker skin than they have. Its really delightful to know that this is a sign of racial harmony here in South Carolina.
Nov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Don't dismiss it too quickly. Several studies have found that it predicts meaningful behavior, sometimes above and beyond what self-reported measures do.
http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/pdf/Real-world_samples.pdf
Classifying words correctly and quickly into categories is just part of the IAT's modus operandi. It doesn't invalidate the test.
As to whether it is a propaganda effort, I think the answer to that question is yes, although its left-liberal champions would call it consciousness-raising.
Schrodinger's Cat: Check out these instructions on the President IAT (emphasis added)
AN incredibly stupid test, perhaps more a propaganda effort than a true study. · 3 hours ago
Aug '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
For what it's worth, here's the text of the applicable FAQ item:
Source: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/background/faqs.html
Aug '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Aodhan: Generally, the Race IAT works across a variety of stimuli, both words or pictures.
Interestingly, IAT effects are generally bigger for words than for pictures. No one is quite sure why.
That doesn't really answer my question about differences in results between colour photographs vs. greyscale photographs.
Nov '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Sorry Misthiocracy for not being specific enough.
Well, I have a race IAT online that features colour photos of three black men and three white men. The regular effect has emerged.
(If you can get it to run, you can try the IAT at the URL below. An awkward plug-in is required, which often refuses to download properly.)
Instructions:
http://mindstudies.org/authorware.aspx
Study:
http://mindstudies.psy.soton.ac.uk/ShowAuthorware.aspx?sname=sw1&w=800&h=450
I don't know for sure whether colour versus non-colour stimuli would make a difference. It's an empirical question.
Perhaps it would slightly enlarge the IAT effect by present race as more of a, well, black-and-white issue. But I suspect it wouldn't matter.
Although the nature of the items classified can influence the IAT, it's the categories that tend to matter most. The items are mainly a means to an end. Any limited influence by items is mostly via mild adjustments of how the categories' are interpreted.
Misthiocracy
That doesn't really answer my question about differences in results between colour photographs vs. greyscale photographs. · 2 minutes ago
Jun '11
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Isn't a colorist something like an interior decorator?
Dec '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
"Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for African American compared to European American."
So, I suppose if I ever get a job putting printed words that represent good things and photographs of Americans of African descent, and printed words that represent bad things and pictures of Americans of European descent, I'll be able to do it quicker than lots of other people.
Other than that, I have no idea what this means.
Dec '10
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
Also, on the Light Skin - Dark Skin IAT:
"Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Dark Skin and Light Skin."
I don't know what this means especially with respect to my score on the African American - European American IAT.
Jun '11
Re: Seems I'm the Least Racist White Woman in America
George Savage is right -- it's all about how quickly you can master the pattern. The first associations are light+good and dark+bad. Then you get light+bad and dark+good. For the first batch, you're basically learning the pattern. Although the second pattern is slightly disorienting at first, if you learn to pattern match quickly, you'll answer in the second pattern more quickly. The key (which you learn as you go along) is to disassociate the meaning of the words from the pattern of the words and their match to images. At that point, if the next association was rattlesnake+healthful and apple+harmful, you'd go even faster and find out that you had a slight preference for rattlesnakes over apples.