Are you sexist? Are you a bigot?
Probably, if bigotry and sexism are defined as having implicit mental associations between specific behaviours and roles and specific sexes or racial groups.
Find out: http://www.implicit.harvard.edu
The Implicit Association Test measures reactive relationships between human distinctions (male / female, black / white, gay / straight, etc) and characteristics (entrepreneur / homemaker, tragic / happy, humiliate / pleasure, etc). The test measures how quickly you associate distinctions and characteristics: when the word “entrepreneur” flashes on the screen, does it take you longer to associate that word with “female” than with “male”? Do you associate negative words more quickly with pictures of black people than of white people?
Probably yes. Probably yes, even if your negative associations regard your own sex or race.
Malcolm Gladwell says in his book “blink” that fifty percent of black people have stronger positive associations with white people than with people of their own race.
WTF is that all about? It’s about the way our mind - our “subconscious” - does its own thing, sucks in its own information and makes its own judgements, regardless of our sensibilities, our analytical abilities, our choices our freedom our concerted efforts to rise out of ignorance and nastiness.
Frankly, this whole subconscious business just pisses me off.
June 18th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
I’m currently reading Blink and I’m about to the part where they talk about the mental associations. I think it’s fascinating, but the topic should be handled carefully–since those kinds of issues are touchy. I dont think having subconscious relations like that make you a bigot–they’re just the result of the social norms around you. You’re responsible for what conscious actions you take, and you cant blame that on the environment. But these little things in the back of your mind are a different creature, and until you become aware of them and work to fix them, I dont think you can necessarily be wronged for having them.
June 21st, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Very good point - the fundamental principle of most legal systems is that one is judged by one’s actions, not one’s thoughts. (thank Dog. )
My concern - and my inflammatory, yellow-journalism subject heading - is because our actions *are* our personal responsibility, whether or not they’re prompted by conscious or unconscious motivations. Whether we like it or not, we’re victims of our subconscious - our “blink” responses. So, for example, I might consciously believe in gender and racial equality, but my actions, influenced by my subconscious responses, might be contrary to my conscious beliefs.
In “blink”, Gladwell suggests that the way to change those subconscious judgements is via exposing yourself to those people that you subconsciously de-value. However, I’ve been exposing myself to positive-role-model-type women (including myself) for most of my life, but the Implicit Association Test tells me that I still have a bias against women. Even though I’m a woman. sheesh.