Hidden Attitudes

[crypticgirl]

I went to a conference today to give a presentation, for which I got... wait for it... a chopping board and a CD of Christmas carols. Not that neither present is appreciated, but they were kind of random even as far as speakers' gifts tend to go.

Someone at the conference was talking about the implicit predjudices we build up which give us negative impressions of other people. He pointed us all to the Implicit Association Test designed by Harvard and a couple of other universities to unveil some of those biases. It's not very accessible, but if you have some vision then the tests should be okay.

So far I've done three of the IATs, including:

Able-Disabled: Slight bias towards able bodied people
Sexual Preference: Neutral
Light Skin-Dark Skin: Moderate bias towards light skin

Don't know how accurate they've been able to make this, but it's really interesting nonetheless.

Comments

[ghoath.livejournal.com]

when i saw the first paragraph and the start of the seconnd, I thought this was going to be some meaningful post where you explain the inherent biases of the people you spoke to, through the symbolism of the chopping board and christmas cd.

Maybe not on a friday night. As I wrote the above, I had to laugh at how rediculous my idea sounds. Possible, but rediculous.

[crypticgirl.livejournal.com]

I could try it if you'd like? :P

[ghoath.livejournal.com]

well I would've said the chopping board is a stereotyping of gender roles thing, that's pretty easy to pick.

So I suppose the Christmas Cd says something about our cultural expectation that celebrating Christmas is nearly mandatory. I won't go as far as saying a religious bias, cos they're probably not all religious songs, more the snow and santa and buying things type.

And the Cd says something about the expectation that you would have the technological ability and know how to play a CD. It assumes that you are aware of Cd technology, and have access to a CD player suitable for someone with your disabilities.

You can tell these drugs are doing well for me.

[crypticgirl.livejournal.com]

Yay for wellness! :) *hugs*

Hm. They're good underlying assumptions that I hadn't actually thought about at all. I was just going to do something satirical, though I'm not sure what.

I dread to think what the bonsai and the mini bocce set (my other speaker gifts this year) say about the conferences I was at! It's much simpler when they just give you wine or chocolate.

[ghoath.livejournal.com]

there's a joke about dwarves in there somewhere.

but that would be one minority discriminating against another if i did that.

[crypticgirl.livejournal.com]

You're not... implying that I'm short?

*falls over with shock*

5'1" is a perfectly respectable height, I'll have you know. :P

[solstice-singer.livejournal.com]

It sounds quite interesting. The biases people hold have always intrigued me. But then, the way people think in general is kind of a turn-on for me.

[crypticgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it interests me too. I actually started out as a psychology major at uni, and then realised that most of the content, while interesting, wasn't teaching me how to respond to actual people. So I switched to English Lit instead. :)

If I'd been willing to change universities I would have probably considered social work or psychotherapy, but I wasn't so I didn't.