Why Is the IAT for Race So Important?

Implicit association tests have gained a large amount of popularity within the field of social psychology. They are used measure the strength of a person’s automatic processes. One of the application IAT tests is to detect implicit bias. Implicit means a bias bellow the person’s conscious awareness. There is a debate whether implicit racism is really racism. One view is that people have these views and they act differently towards the stereotyped group because of shame or guilt and not out of hostility so it shouldn’t be implicit racism. A problem with this position is that the individual who scores high on the implicit racism is not aware of their attitudes. However it can be argued that the IAT is picking up on racial attitudes that the participant doesn’t want people to know. This is a difficult position to take since much of the evidence is against it. The argument against this position is that people who score high on IAT don’t score high on scales for explicit racism and that many of these people have done work to help African Americans therefore aren’t aware that they have these implicit attitudes. However it is possible that someone holds racist attitudes and feels it isn’t right to do so and will deny upon discovery. This is the reason the test was created in the first place, because there was less explicit racism but still discrimination. Whether the racism is bellow or above consciousness it still ends up leading to real effects. One situation could be with the police where and man is pulling out his wallet from his pocket. If the officer has an implicit bias he will be more likely to shoot a second quicker if it was a black man as oppose to white man. These few seconds could cost the man his life. Another example is someone is applying for a job. If the person giving the interview has an implicit bias towards African Americans then they might be less likely to hire an African American applicant. This is very worrisome since throughout a person’s life from the day a child is born to the day they die, they need other people to help them. This includes teachers helping a students, a guidance counselor pointing a child in the right direction, a doctor making assumptions about a patient or whether one gets their dream job. Therefore somebody of an ethnic minority may receive fewer opportunities to succeed because someone holds an implicit bias against them. What people score on IAT tests matters since if someone constantly runs into people in authority positions with implicit biases then that person will be an extreme disadvantage. But if there was a way to reduce or get rid of implicit bias then it would get us one step closer to being on an even playing field. The first step towards that is to recognize that we all might hold this implicit bias and that’s where the IAT comes in.

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