re: Take Harvard's Implicit Bias (Race) Test

I'd be interested in seeing the results if the face and word sections were reversed. Meaning by the time I got to the last test, I was used to the words and faces and made it faster for me to click. Not sure if that affected the results though.

This test was dumb. I wasn’t concerned about associating blacks with weapons or vice versa, I was concerned about doing what it said as quick as I could. Whoever made these tests, should be kicked out of Harvard or fired from Harvard immediately

At the end of the results, the people designing this test did kind of address how ordering influences the results though. I don't know if the influence of the ordering on the results is really just an insignificant bit, but since they claimed that it is, I'll believe that it is because I'm not a total expert on how psychological tests work for the unconscious/implicit part of the brain. Since the researchers claimed that the order is randomly assigned, I would assume that the overall results for the tests aren't skewed.



This series of test (IATs) are actually pretty popular in social psychology classes now. One of the most popular criticisms I've heard from psychological professors/researchers is that the test might measure a person's conscious awareness of stereotypes instead of his or her implicit bias. So this test may not really 100% measure someone's implicit bias. This test was very controversial though, so it actually had to go through numerous validity tests to ensure that it's a valid and reliable test, thus it's actually a large group of psychology experts that "greenlit" this project. The Harvard IATs are regarded as one of the best tests to assess implicit associations so far, so don't dismiss this whole thing that quick, but reasonable criticisms are fair, since the researchers behind IATs (not just from Harvard, but also from other reputable institutions) did say that the test isn't perfect and that they are still trying their best to improve it.

If anyone wants to know more about how it works, you can check out their faq website:
Project Implicit FAQs

The FAQs kind of explain how the whole test works, and if there are any questions you can just send an email and they'll always reply within a few days (I sent an email asking questions about this test for my class a few months ago). They told me they were happy to explain everything, and they were willing to take in any advice to improve this test since it's not perfect.

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Whoever greenlit this project does not deserve to go to Harvard.

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Probably a pretty huge number tbqh

All that I gathered was that answering questions swiftly and successfully rewarded you with a good result. Kinda like all standardized tests.

Yeah. Their assumption is that no matter the order, the results will remain the same. Half of the test taking group takes the test in a certain order, and the other half of the group takes the test in the opposite order. Assuming that pattern association is a very significant influence, the overall results of the test should be relatively equal; the results will most likely be in a bell-curve/normal distribution shape, and that isn't the case for the results for this test. You could repeatedly take the test a few more times to test its reliability – whether or not you get the same results. The concept behind implicit bias is that it is unconscious, in other words, you're not supposed to be aware of it. So if people take the test with the awareness that it's trying to test if he or she is biased, the results might be slightly skewed because as I said earlier, it might test a person's awareness of stereotypes instead of implicit bias, so it might not really measure what it's supposed to measure.

If you're doubtful, you can always email them about it.