The Implicit Association (IAT)

You will need to complete two preliminary steps before you begin the Implicit Association Test (IAT) discussion activity for this lesson.

Step 1

Watch the Implicit Association Test video and read the brief introductory materials provided directly below the clip. The video captures an interview with Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, and is directly accessible from this link.

After you have viewed the IAT video interview it is important to remember that bias and prejudicial behavior are two separate issues and that, although an individual may show bias, they may not act in a prejudicial manner. The fact that the two individuals in this You Tube video showed bias, and also demonstrated behaviors contrary to their IAT bias, supports the idea that discriminatory behavior is not always predicted by the Implicit Association Test.. Nevertheless IAT bias results suggests that there may still be an opportunity for prejudice to “grow.” What do you think? And do you believe that your IAT results are valid?

Once you compete your own IAT and submit the results via Assignment Tool (Step 2), you may also want to visit other YouTube IAT-related videos or conduct a brief Implicit Association Test web search before submitting your discussion, including the Scientific American article “How to Think about Implicit Bias” linked in the image below. Although the IAT video found in this introduction was only posted recently, research using the IAT has been conducted for more than 15 years. Results from the IAT were first published in 1998 by Anthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, Joyce Sherry, and Jordan Schwartz. Since the time of that first publication the IAT has been employed in a number of settings. For example, recent uses of the IAT focus on business and marketing strategies and what has been referred to as System 1 and System 2 processes. Proponents in these business-related YouTube videos suggest that IAT bias may have value in marketing a product.

Step 2

After reviewing the video and text materials in Step 1, read the “About Project Implicit” (ATTACHED) article. Once you have read this article and fully understand the Implicit Association Test (IAT), visit the official IAT website to complete your own IAT.

You may choose to complete ANY of the available IATs from the list for this activity but you must save your results upon completion.

As a suggestion, consider choosing the IAT activity topic for which you do NOT have strong personal opinions about – the goal is to introduce you to the measurement of bias, while minimizing any discomfort you may experience about the results.

You can save your results by copying and pasting the text into a Word document or taking a screen shot using the following directions:

• Windows – Taking a screen shot
• Mac – Taking a screen shot