Measuring Racism

Today in class we'll be discussing the roots of prejudice and discrimination. For some background, please read through this article: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions.

It will provide you with some examples of how psychologists and other social scientists isolate and test for racial biases.

If you would like, after you finish the article you may choose to take an Implicit Association Test (IAT). This is one of the ways researchers have attempted to assess unconscious bias.

Prejudice and Discrimination: Social Psych Research

In class over the next couple of days, we'll be exploring the social and cognitive factors that lead to prejudice and discrimination. We're going to attempt to answer a few questions about these issues through our work, including:

What evidence is there that prejudice and discrimination persist in modern life?
To see how social scientists explore these issues, we'll read this article.

Secondly, we'll attempt to figure out why prejudice and discrimination appear even when people readily acknowledge such things are wrong and consciously believe they (personally) do not harbor such inclinations?

One area of research that has suggested answers to this second question is the use of Implicit Association Tests, which are described by your text on p. 782. In order to get a sense of how these tests measure implicit bias, you'll have time to complete one in class.

More Discussion: the Implicit Association Test

Remember the Implicit Association Test project that you (my students) completed for me? I'm still reviewing your reflections from that activity, and some themes have emerged in the responses.

For one, many of us obtained scores that indicate some (slight, moderate, or strong) automatic preference for one group over another: white over black, young over old, etc. Yet most of us also felt compelled to defend our own images in the face of this information, sometimes by writing off the results of the test. For example: "I don't believe this result is true. I'm not a racist." While the defensiveness is, on some level, a postive sign that we've interalized the idea that racism and prejudicial beliefs are not socially acceptable, I worry that this would cause us to entirely dismiss the possibility that even well-intentioned people can harbor biases (even unconscious ones?). Check out this article by Karen Kersting which appeared in the APA's Monitor on Psychology in March 2005: "Not Biased?"

On the other hand, as we discussed in class, what the results of these hidden biases are in human behavior is not exactly clear. In this 2008 article by Beth Azar which also appeared in the Monitor on Psychology, "IAT: Fad or Fabulous?" , the author points out that the test is hardly a perfect one. Some question the reliability and validity of the test. After all, what does it mean to have a "slight" preference for one race over another? As you astutely pointed out, it probably does not make you a "racist"... but what it does mean in terms of human behavior is not clear.

What do you think? How should the test be used (if at all)? Is it possible to learn anything from its results?