First a thought on the visualization exercise: being able to quickly visualize a generic individual for a given phrase suggests bias (why'd you assign those traits?). But, I'm hesitant to say the same about visualizing a specific individual. Sure, bias likely plays a role in all my interactions, but the simple fact that I consider X person "annoying," and think of them when so prompted doesn't seem to suggest bias. (The fact that I unconsciously assume that anyone who reminds me of X is also annoying shows one way that bias forms, but that idea didn't really come across in the intro video)
IAT
I've taken many IAT tests over the years, and my general observation is that if I stumble, I tend to take a while to recover my flow. As a result, I occasionally get "strong preference" results that I ascribe mostly to chance. Today, for example, I got a "Strong preference for light-skinned" and a "moderate preference for African Americans"
I found the "Native IAT" odd. I didn't start with any association between the pictures and their concepts, so I was pretty slow and not very accurate in the first few rounds, but got progressively better. It didn't so much feel that I was making Foreign vs American associations so much as learning an arbitrary categorization. I'd prefer it just have the locations (so I could read them better). But, I only got a "slight preference"...
Similarly some parts of the "Asian IAT" - there were a couple locations that I had switched, and some faces I had difficulty categorizing. I ended up with a moderate Asian=American preference.
Overall, I don't feel like I learned anything about myself (especially not by trusting the results), but I answered all the survey questions, so hopefully my data will be useful in some small way
I agree that there does seem to be a bit of a learning curve, or of becoming familiar with the process of categorizing groups or places or features. The first couple of IATs I took may have been less accurate or reflect my bias leanings, compared to those I took later.
I felt totally wrecked by my results for the skin tone IAT. I know that I'm racist, and assumed I had bias, but was not in any way expecting for the automatic response to be so high. I felt myself arguing internally a lot, and trying to get it right, and that was tripping me up even moreso.
I think that these Implicit Association Tests are well designed. However, in some moments I felt a bit manipulated when showing pictures related to one characteristic or another that pushed me to think on what I really considered to be true for me, and at the same time, I felt a little anxious because I tried to follow the rules at a quick pace when clicking the X key for one or another element. And about the results, yes.. I got surprised to get a different view from what I expected and this made me reflect upon some changes I should consider to do from now on. Thanks for the insight!
My results showed:
1) no automatic preference between Dark Skinned People and Light Skinned People. I guess because I always give them the benefit of the doubt equally.
2) a slight automatic preference for Black people over White people. It is mostly related to the environment i grew up.
3) My results showed a strong automatic association for American with Native American and Foreign with White American. Again, related to people I grew up with.
4) Slight automatic association for American with European American and Foreign with Asian American. It might be the issue that I did not have friends or meet many people that were Asian Americans. I have only interacted with Asians in American.
My IAT results showed slight or moderate preferences for Black people over white people, American with Native American, and Asian American with American. None of this really surprises me right now, because the more I learn about all of this, the less positive I feel towards white people! Also, I grew up with an Asian mom and many Asian friends, so it doesn't surprise me that I would view them more favorably, and as firmly American.