september 18th | journal 3
I HAVE SO MANY OPINIONS ABOUT THE IAT TEST. I FELT UNCOMFORTABLE COMPLETING THE SECTION THAT RELATED BAD QUALITIES/EMOTIONS WITH BLACK PEOPLE BELOW AND GOOD WITH WHITE PEOPLE BELOW. I ALSO FELT THAT WHEN THEY WERE SWITCHED, IT WAS NOT AS LONG. I honestly think the test makers' bias was embedded in the test (human or machine). Or my biases are causing me to respond poorly to the design of the test. I was not shocked by my results, and this was not my first time taking the test. But this exercise made me wonder what the test was based on like what exactly are the prompts informed by because I think it would be hard to get honest results based on the layout and the sequence of the questions it kind of presents bias from the very beginning, which makes me feel like it's less of a scientific based social experiment and more of a formal conditioning/indoctrination.
The test revealed that I was faster at sorting Black people as good and white people as bad than vice versa. Which they also revealed was the less common result. I wonder if that has more to do with the test's structure than with people's honest feelings. But I may just be optimistic.