Implicit Association Test

I wouldn't classify myself as prejudiced. Privileged, sure. Aware of my privilege, absolutely. I never would say that I discriminate consciously against people. I have friends of many races and ethnicities; I have friends who are gay and straight. I'd like to consider myself as open to learning from and with the people around me, but I realize that it is likely that I'm in more of a bubble than I'd care to admit. Many of my friends are white, middle- to upper-class Christians. I grew up in a suburb of a Southern city in a majority white area. My high school, while diverse largely self-segregated itself into different cliques of students. And while I don't think I consciously judge those who are different from me, I imagined that subconsciously I've learned to associate good and bad with different groups of people.

That's where this implicit association test comes in. I've taken a couple of these before. During the test I was so focused on my fingers doing the right thing, and the fact that I couldn't really read the screen that I felt like it was hard to do the test. I wonder if being good at video games - or having the right type of glasses would have helped.

My results were "moderate automatic preference to other people over arabs." I was not surprised by the results, because I've found that automatically with these types of tests it is likely that you will choose the familiar. I do think that there is validity to the test though, especially in understanding that all people have some unconscious subtle preferences in the world around them. These attitudes color our interactions and our thoughts, and therefore are important.