Implicit Association Test is a test that aims to discover and measure the implicit bias of a person taking it. In the time of taking the test, a person needs to react quickly and answer questions that divide concepts into two categories (Harvard’s Project Implicit, 2021). Despite people making their decisions consciously, some choices are made automatically due to the lack of time, which proves personal views on the topic. Therefore, the bias factor can be discovered by counting when a mistake was made in categorizing.
Researchers often turn to the Implicit Association Test to identify opinions towards the topic under discussion. It highlights the factors in which the individual is unconsciously biased, helping understand prejudice better. Researchers use it to point out the existing aspect of discrimination present in any person, regardless of their spoken opinion on the matter (Kang, 2014). Therefore, it creates the need for people to explore their views better and become more open to certain things. Upon taking the test, I have discovered that I possess certain biases myself, for instance, age bias. While doing the test, it became clear that there is a negative opinion regarding older people. It was unexpected to me as I thought I hold no prejudice against any age group at all.
However, the test does not always predict the behavior of an individual very well. The things on people’s minds are not always the same as what they do in real life. Therefore, even though the implicit bias may be detected, not much can be changed about it. According to Schwenkler (2017), the propositions and associations are two different aspects of the human thought process, and providing related evidence will unlikely change the discriminatory behavior of an individual. The link between the association test result and the behavior is quite feeble because images shown in a test are falsely chosen due to a broader range of beliefs.
References
Harvard’s Project Implicit. (2021). The Implicit Association Test. Web.
Schwenkler, J. (2017). What can we learn from the Implicit Association Test? The Brains Blog. Web.
TEDx. (2014). Immaculate perception: Jerry Kang at TEDxSanDiego [Video]. YouTube. Web.