How do I know I'm pressing the right buttons??

In Mike Judge’s popular television series, King of the Hill, when the main character Hank is accused of being racist, he takes a test on the Internet to prove this assertion false. Hank tries to remember the correct keys to press as words and faces flash on the computer screen and his friends and family scream and encourage him. The results show that he has a “strong preference for Caucasian-Americans as opposed to African-Americans” and the town takes this as proof that he is a racist. Although this test, called the Implicit Associates Test, does exist in real life, Hank Hill depicts the exact wrong way both to take and interpret the test (the test should be taken in an environment with minimal distractions and a preference for one group over the other does not indicate that an individual is prejudiced.)

First developed by Greenwald and Bananji, the Implicit Associates Test (IAT) is designed to assess the automatic, unconscious preferences people form for certain groups as compared to others. Series of either negative or positive words or images representing different groups flash on the screen one at a time and the participant presses specific keys to indicate the group to which the word or image belongs. For example, you may be asked to press ‘e’ for positive words or images of African Americans and asked to press ‘i’ for negative words and images of Caucasian Americans. The test continues until you have completed sets for all possible combined categories of words and images (i.e., positive words with both Caucasian American and African American images, and negative words with both Caucasian American and African American images.)

There are a wide variety of Implicit Associates Tests other than those based on race or ethnicity that one can choose to complete. I personally chose to take the Disability and Religion IATs. Interestingly, I showed a moderate automatic preference for disabled persons compared to abled persons, and a moderate negative association towards Christianity. In contrast, I showed slight positive associations for Islam, Hinduism and Judaism, with the most positive association being associated with Islam. My preference for disabled people is consistent with my conscious beliefs in that I’m disabled and have a slight preference for people who can understand my plight, although this preference is more pronounced than I would have expected. However, I don’t believe this is necessarily a true attitude of mine because I think these results reflect more of a bias against able-bodied people on my part than a bias in favor of disabled people. I’ve become very bitter and hateful being surrounded by young, healthy people all the time (this is only half a joke.)

Whether my results for the Religion IAT are consistent with my conscious beliefs or not is much more difficult to assess as compared to the Disability IAT. Although I’m consciously aware of a slight negative bias I hold towards Christianity and religion as a whole, my conscious beliefs toward the other three, specific religions is relatively neutral.  Rather than representing my true attitudes, I think these results reflect the negative or positive experiences I have had with individuals of these religions in the past. I have had many negative experiences with Christians over the years, partly because they represent the bulk of my interactions with religious people. The few experiences I have had Muslims and Hindus, however, have been limited but overwhelmingly positive. Finally, I have had little to no direct experience with people of the Judaic faith, and therefore understand why my attitudes toward Judaism may fall closest to neutral.

Completing the Implicit Associates Tests made me realize that although I may consider myself less prejudiced than others, I am simply prejudiced against different groups than others. I favor groups similar to myself like most other people. I’m only different in the respect that as a disabled person and an Atheist, I relate to groups that are more commonly discriminated against by the majority of Americans.

(n = 662)