Noted in today’s link roundup from Greg Piper is an interesting item regarding implicit bias and a revolutionary psychological test that renders the test taker’s deepest, innermost thoughts as indications of their biases toward races, genders, religions, sexual orientations, and a lot of other applicable subjects. I haven’t had the chance to take the online test yet (the website seems to be down at the moment), but one thing the article mentions is conservatives tend to score with more bias than liberals, though the overall trend indicates that nearly everyone is biased, even those who fight bias and prejudice on a daily basis.
UPDATE: I finally got a chance to take the tests for racial and gender bias. I scored a slight automatic preference for White Americans over African Americans, and was preferential to Females and Career over Male and Career.
Depending on the magnitude of your result, your automatic preference may be described as ’slight’, ‘moderate’, ’strong’, or ‘little to no preference’.
I’m not overly surprised at the results, though in my mind it’s clear that my upbringing and environment have shaped my preferences. I grew up in an all-white neighbourhood, and only had few black friends in school. Ditto for when I came to Virginia Tech. Calling the town Blacksburg is like calling Sweden “Land of the Ethiopians”.