I believe that everyone has an implicit view of the different things. The information of our true attitude to the certain social groups or current political events can be hidden from other people due to the obvious or not reluctance to demonstrate the real opinion. Wherefore does the implicit bias exist? Sometimes, under pressure from shaped social view or due to the family upbringing, people do not want to express the stands to an understanding of race, gender or social status. However, it is most likely that human does not even aware of his or her inner attitudes and stereotypes. The implicit bias, as for me, is intuitive feeling or belief that occurs spontaneously in case human’s protective barriers are distracted as IAT demonstrates, for instance. The complicated functioning of our brain produces both implicit and explicit perceptions that can be complementary and has an undoubted influence on human’s social behavior.
I have always had a strong interest in projects related to the racial issues. I believe that I am a free person in my true reflection of the attitude to the certain problems. The racial discrimination, as for me, has to be eliminated from modern society. I prefer equality of races and actually support people with different racial or ethnic background. However, it is possible that some of my convictions can be forced or I do not recognize my true vision of the problem correctly. For measuring of my implicit biases connected with racial perceptions, I took both Race IAT and Skin-tone IAT. Honestly, the interpretations of the tests surprised me. The data from the “Race IAT” suggested “a slight automatic preference for European American compared to African American” and the data from “Skin-tone IAT” suggested “a moderate automatic preference for Light Skin compared to Dark Skin”. The hidden power of the subconscious demonstrates that I connect Light Skin faces with Good words in most cases due to the speed of my reactions and responds (Skin-tone “Light Skin - Dark Skin IAT”). The same results occur with the stronger connection between European American faces and Good words (Race “Black-White IAT”).
As far as I know my vision about the confrontation of Black and White communities, I have always stood for the equality in case a Black or White person with an appropriate education and work experience wants to get a job. I am open for the relationship with both Black and White people and I have friends with Dark skin. According to my experience, my social interactions with Dark Skin people have always been positive. However, I assume that the information I received from the Internet or social media of conflicts between White and Black communities had an impact on my racial perceptions. On the other hand, it has never affected my relationship within different social groups. In the social group that I related to, people demonstrate liberal attitude to both blacks and whites. However, as a white person, I might have an intuitive and historical causation of the tests results.
Passing the test was an interesting and useful experience for me. Since I know the accurate vision of my attitude to people from difference race, I will apologize to African Americans and people with Dark skin for my inner perception developed under suspicious circumstances. I will check the information properly and will try to draw conclusions on my own in order to form my implicit image of people corresponding to the explicit stereotypes.
Work cited
Project implicit. Skin-tone “Light Skin - Dark Skin IAT”. Web. 05. July 2016.
<https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1>
Project implicit. Race “Black-White IAT”. Web. 05. July 2016.
<https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1>
