The Implicit Association Test is a task created to detect automatic associations between concepts and attitudes. Normally the test measures between an attitude object and its valence. Implicit attitudes are tests that happen without conscious awareness towards an object or self. The evaluations are overall either favorable or unfavorable and are derived from several influences in individual experiences. Attitudes are formed through experience, social factors and learning. Attitudes form because of experience they may create from personal experiences or from observing others. For instance, children raised by women often tend to have positive implicit attitudes towards women instead of men. The implicit attitudes are formed over repeated associations of negative or positive stimuli with an object. Social factors influence how implicit attitudes on sexuality are formed (Petty, 2018). Social norms relate to how individuals are expected to behave in a particular context and have strong influences on attitude formation. Societal norms inform on the rules for what behaviors are considered appropriate. Additionally attitudes are formed through learning by classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning. An example of classical conditioning in forming attitudes on sexuality is a man thinking of sex every time he sees a woman since he was conditioned to perceive women as sexual objects. Operant conditioning operates on the concept of rewards and punishment (Petty, 2018). A girl who grows up with parent who reprimands her every time she tries to express her sexuality physically may learn to associate her body to shame. Observational learning involves emulating attitudes of role models or people around. For instance, a child growing up in a conservative home might observe their parents attitudes towards sexuality and grow up feeling ashamed of their sexuality.
Implicit biases are stereotypes that impact decisions, understanding and deeds in an unconscious manner. The biases are activated unconsciously since they reside in the subconscious, the biases differ from common biases that people may decide to hide for fear of stigmatization. Implicit biases are not visible through introspection (Greenwald et al. 2015). Implicit associations harbored ion the sub conscious result in attitudes about other individuals based on characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, appearance and sexuality. The implicit associations occur over a long time beginning at a very early age through exposure to indirect or direct messages. Apart from early life experience, the media plays a huge role in causing implicit associations. Implicit biases are pervasive meaning that everyone has them and they do not necessarily align with an individual’s values and beliefs. Implicit biases have caused misunderstandings among individuals in the local level. Most police officers have been accused of harboring implicit biases against African Americans; the biases have been attributed to many cases of police brutality in the United States. Implicit biases may cause an individual to perceive an individual carrying a weapon when in reality they are unarmed. This has been the case with most police shootings where they accuse a suspect of pulling out a gun when maybe they were trying to show identification. Implicit bias in the national level might mean that some individuals are discriminated against due to biases based on race, ethnicity, social class or religion. Implicit biases operate in conjunction with structural racialization to create barriers that deter access to opportunities across key life domains such as health, education, housing and criminal justice. More research indicates that it is becoming complex to downplay the significance of the function of implicit biases when determine societal inequities. Recent research indicates that the best approach to reducing implicit bias should try to evolve social contexts instead of changing people’s minds (Payne & Vuletich 2018 p. 49). The new approaches treat implicit biases as a characterization of social environments rather than trait-like attributes to an individual (Payne & Vuletich 2018 p. 49).
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The implicit association test has some is a research tool fast rising to the acknowledgement of social psychologists. However, the research tool has some significant strengths as well as weaknesses. IAT is flexible and can be used to test a wide array of associations including those that compromise self-concept and stereotypes. Implicit association tests are not influenced by response bias as in explicit attitudes hence high reliability. IAT as a research tool offers the possibility to assess the efficacy of attitude change interventions without demand effects hence increasing validity (Greenwald et al. 2015). The effects of the IAT test are reduced with repeated administrations this could be remedied by developing reliable algorithms to avoid the influence. The efficacy of the test tends to reduce with the age of respondents and the effects of the test are influenced by measurement context variables. One conceptual weakness of the IAT test is the fact that it is prone to bias. The results entirely depend on the individual carrying out the text. IAT as a research tool only measures relative strengths of pairs of association. Some social psychologists argue that IAT’s method of measure is not quite known or understood.
My implicit association tests on sexuality indicate that I have equal preference for both straight and gay people. The results are fairly close to my perceptions since I have always had both gay and straight friends. i have found that I relate well with individuals from both ends of the spectrum. I also grew up in a society that is more accepting to gay individuals therefore my preference might have been informed by the attitudes I adopted through observation learning. The heterosexism believes that exist in the society have never affected my perceptions towards gay individuals.
References
Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2015). Statistically small effects of the Implicit Association Test can have societally large effects.
Payne, B. K., & Vuletich, H. A. (2018). Policy Insights From Advances in Implicit Bias Research. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 5 (1), 49-56.
Petty, R. E. (2018). Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches . Routledge.
