Psychology's Favorite Tool Summary

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In Jesse Singal's article on "Psychology's Favorite Tool...", an interesting point is brought up implicating the IAT tools, specifically race and ethnicity, as falling "short of the quality-control standards" of psychological instruments. Singal states that the research lacks any possible correlation with the real world and, as such, can't predict what would actually happen in the real world. Singal reveals that the tests were not fully validated at the time of their release, but its success was the result of media coverage and the simplicity of understanding the concept of racism and how it can be fixed. According to multiple studies, unavailable public readers, the IAT tests fail in reliability and validity on multiple fronts. On average, …show more content…

What they did find were predictable patterns in how quickly different people responded to different stimulus, but no connection between their scores and discriminatory behavior. According to one paper, what the IAT really could've tested was how familiar one was with stereotypes and scored higher or lower based on that knowledge or how empathetic they were with the out group. The authors discourse with the creators of the IAI allows us to see how Banaji and don’t want to acknowledge the studies shortcomings and instead claims that only a small group of researchers are obsessed with asserting that the IAI is charged with methodological shortcomings. The IAI is so successful that it drives this idea that it can solve everything, but according to Robb Miller, implicit bias are mostly likely driven by structural factors such as racial wealth gap, differential exposure to violence, the availability of early childhood education”. Despite numerous scholarly debates over the efficacy of the IAI and its many shortcomings, it’s still popular in the public. This is because test takers get the sense of being part of the solution to the problem and feelings of commitment to making the world more equal. Still the IAT would still serve as a good way at estimating the level of implicit bias in society and as an educational tool. It’s a good way to let people know they are in some way still a bit bias decide completely denying

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