Go test yourself!

Have you ever wondered why, when so many people claim not to hold discriminatory attitudes there still is evidence of bias in so many aspects of life? One possibility is that people are liars, that they say what they know is "PC" while believing strongly the opposite. Another is that although people can consciously and strongly believe they hold no biases (e.g. racism, sexism, heterosexism/homophobia), they hold implicit negative attitudes.

Want to test your implicit biases? You can do a demo or register as a participant here. More on the project and implicit biases is available on the project's information site.

(From "About Project Implicit")
Project Implicit
Findings observed in seven years of operation of the Project Implicit web site
* Implicit biases are pervasive. They appear as statistically "large" effects that are often shown by majorities of samples of Americans. Over 80% of web respondents show implicit negativity toward the elderly compared to the young; 75-80% of self-identified Whites and Asians show an implicit preference for racial White relative to Black.

* People are often unaware of their implicit biases. Ordinary people, including the researchers who direct this project, are found to harbor negative associations in relation to various social groups (i.e., implicit biases) even while honestly (the researchers believe) reporting that they regard themselves as lacking these biases.

* Implicit biases predict behavior. From simple acts of friendliness and inclusion to more consequential acts such as the evaluation of work quality, those who are higher in implicit bias have been shown to display greater discrimination. The published scientific evidence is rapidly accumulating. Over 200 published scientific investigations have made use of one or another version of the IAT.

* People differ in levels of implicit bias. Implicit biases vary from person to person - for example as a function of the person’s group memberships, the dominance of a person’s membership group in society, consciously held attitudes, and the level of bias existing in the immediate environment. This last observation makes clear that implicit attitudes are modified by experience.


Some news stories on implicit bias and its real world effects:
See No Bias (By Shankar Vedantam, The Washington Post, January 23, 2005)
Tests of ER trainees find signs of race bias in care (Stephen Smith, The Boston Globe, July 20, 2007)

ugh

I was contemplating what to ask for in terms of a teaching responsibility for the Fall semester. This news item may have made the decision for me.

Older siblings really are know-it-alls, study finds
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff

Is big sister always telling you what's best? Does big brother seem to know it all?

Instead of stewing in resentment, maybe you should start listening when they dispense smart-alecky advice.

Turns out, they really are brighter than you, by and large.

A massive study by Norwegian scientists appearing in today's edition of the journal Science concludes that a child raised as the eldest has a higher intelligence quotient, on average, than younger siblings.

Stories based on this research study have been floating around. The non-scientific media claims keep growing, e.g., the headline has mutated from "families' eldest boys do best on tests" (with the buried caveat: "...the Norwegian analysis focused on men...") to "oldest children are smartest". I'm waiting for the headline which reads "Youngest Girls: Why Bother?"

When I see this sort of malarky science reporting being given high press value, it makes the notion of teaching methods to students who will have been exposed to it without innoculation seem quite a bit less enticing. Such articles are likely to enflame what are even now flickers of a will be research topic in the undergrad major come Fall, who if experience is to be any guide, will come in wanting to prove things liek their own personal take on a long standing family grudge about who's best.

The family ones are only a little less troublesome than the people who want to "prove" gender stereotypes. Oh here's a tip on that one. Tell the students if they want to use male/female they have to either (a) call the variable"sex" or (b) measure "gender" explicitly because they cannot conflate gender with sex. It does help, mostly I think because they don't like having to write the word "sex" over and over.

On the brights side, seeing this sort of article does make the notion of teaching intro somewhat more appealing. I feel like some kind of magpie, plucking up the garbage which has been given the glimmer of "science", and flying off to line my nest with it, or in this case, to add into my lesson plan on *scientific*literacy*.

I am armed with library access to many journals. (Hey, one nice thing about being an academic. I found one thing I still truly inherently enjoy Jay!) I can't wait to read the article on this "Massive study by Norwegian scientists". We can just be happy it wasn't "a team of Norwegian scientists". You just can't argue with the findings of a whole team of scientists, can you?