Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

Unconscious prejudice

This is a very interesting site but you will need to devote at least ten minutes to it to get a result. It's run by Harvard University. The 'demonstration' tests on the left are the place to start.

(EDIT - that link was knackered, I think I have fixed it, clever espresso and caolescent obviously navigated my error)

These tests attempt to model your unconscious prejudices. They do it by asking you to sort words and pictures very rapidly. For instance I ran a test about Bush and Kerry. First it asked me to sort pictures of Kerry against good words (and bad words against Bush) and then vice versa (Kerry/bad against Bush/good). It picked up that I sorted slower when I was trying to match 'good' words' with pictures of Bush, and concluded that I had a strong visceral dislike of Bush. Which is correct of course.

I then did another couple of test which said that

- I moderately associated 'male' with science and 'female' with liberal arts
- I moderately associated 'homosexual' with 'good' concepts (that surprised me; I thought I would be neutral)

The demonstration section includes tests about race, age, and fat vs thin, which I haven't tried yet. In the main section there are apparently 60 tests in all (that's where I got the Bush Kerry one) but they are selected at random when you sign in, and your results are used in developing their research.
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  • Phew what a scorcher

    I see Gove has backed down on climate change and it's back in the curriculum again.

  • GCSE Computer Science

    My book is now for sale

  • LJ Settings

    At the moment I have set up this journal so that only friends can comment. I hate doing this, but I was just getting too much Russian spam.