Blink and the IAD tests

[Scuba]

Just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink", a book exploring snap decisions and "trusting you gut". Interesting read. Here's a review...

http://www.vdare.com/articles/malcolm-gladwell-blinks-at-racial-realities



Part of the book addresses the Project Implicit IAD tests, which purport to measure bias. I took a couple (you can too, here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html )

The "age IAT" test suggested I have better regard for children than middle-aged people. Probably true.

It also suggested I have a "slight automatic preference for African American as compared to European American". Interesting that this old white guy would test that way; I suspect my knowledge of what was being tested influenced my score, although the "experts" suggest "gaming the system" is not possible.

Anyway, I wonder if any other DU'ers have knowledge/experience with the IAD testing. Is it valid? A sham?

[NYC_SKP]

1. I prefer children to young and old adults, with mid-age adults a tad below the rest.

It was a bit disconcerting clicking through and identifying bad words alternatively with faces from different age groups, ie: "Awful" then a Child's face, or "Hate" with an old person's face.

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You have completed the Age-Groups IAT

Thank you for your participation. This study is designed to understand how people feel toward different age groups. You were randomly assigned to an implicit measure of your attitudes toward four age groups: children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults; you also reported how you felt toward all of these age groups. We are interested in understanding which age groups individuals feel most positively toward and have the easiest time associating with Good rather than Bad.

Your implicit association results, appearing to the right, are for entertainment and educational purposes only.

Age groups closer to the top of the figure were more strongly associated with good than age groups closer to the bottom of the figure. The ratings are relative, meaning that the good and bad age-group ratings are in comparison to the other ages. In this display, the ones that are most positive (least negative) would appear toward the top and the ones that are most negative (least positive) would appear toward the bottom. This measure incorporated a variation of a rapid sorting task known as the Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT; Sriram & Greenwald, 2009).

One topic of particular interest is whether self-reported attitudes towards age groups agree or disagree with implicit associations. Were yours consistent? If not, why might that be, and what consequences could it have? These are some of the questions we are addressing with on-going research.

If you have unanswered questions about the task, please review background information about this research or email (Feedback) with questions or comments.

You are welcome to try additional demonstration tasks, and we encourage you to register (easy) for the research site where you will gain access to dozens of studies about social groups, personality, pop culture, and more.

Your Implicit Preference Scale
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More
Positive


child
youngold
middle


More
Negative
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