An Analysis Of The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

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Ever since the end of racial segregation, Americans have struggled with equality and have been caught between racial tensions and incidences that portray racial prejudice in the existing society. Sociologists and physiologist Anthony Greenwald with two of his other colleagues designed the Implicit Association Test (IAT) that evaluates the autonomic associations individuals have based on their reactions towards certain topics such as race. I recently took the test and the results were absolutely not surprising to me. According to the results of the IAT the following percentages depict the percentage of test takers’ autonomic preferences to either black or white: 48% have a strong autonomic preference to whites, 13 % moderate to white, 12 % slight preference to whites, 12% little or no preference to whites, 6 % slight preference to black, 4 % moderate preference to black and 6 % Strong automatic preference for Black people. The test portrayed me as having no automatic preference between white or black; which is true based on my experiences. As I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, my association towards whites was that of wealth because the only white people who would come to Kenya …show more content…

Both authors have taken the deliberative to uncover the unconscious phenomenon that controls and affects how people interact, make perceptions, assumptions and even decisions in life. Most of these biases that people tend to have against other races are shaped and reinforced by one’s surroundings and experiences. It is therefore important expose these biases so as to grow as a society and extinguish the white privileges. Unless America is ready to face the truth about the existing biases, racial tensions and incidences will continue to

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