I took four of the Implicit Association Tests (IATs): Gender-Career, Age, Race, and Religion. The first three provided results that I predicted; however the Religion results surprised me. I would like to share my results with you all, because I think it illustrates nicely how associations may work.
For anyone who did not take the Religion IAT, here is a summary. I was asked to categorize words related to four religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), and words related to good or bad. The results indicated how the religions fell on a scale from Positive associations to Negative associations.
Let me provide some background information about my conscious beliefs. I do not align myself with any particular religion, although I did grow up in a slightly Christian family, and in a very Christian town. I have taken several classes on different kinds of religion, and frequently read on my own, as the variety of religions and religious beliefs is an interest of mine. I do not claim to have a particular fondness for any religion.
My results can be seen in this image:
Obviously, I have many positive associations with Buddhism, while the other three religions are clustered together in the more negative section. This really surprised me. I figured that they would all be rather close together, and that Christianity would be the most positive, since it is what I am most accustomed to, considering my childhood and our culture. After thinking about it, however, I think I may have a theory as to why I received such results.
While I was taking the IAT, certain feelings and snippets of experience were appearing for me. When I think of Buddhism, I tend to think of meditation, peace, calm, and understanding. These are all positive associations. Although I do have positive associations for each of the other religions, the negative ones tended to come out while I was taking this IAT: for Christianity, discrimination against minorities, women, and homosexuals; for Islam, the terrorist attacks on the United States, the War on Terror, and the media’s portrayal of Islam; and for Judaism, the thousands of years of discrimination of Jews, especially the Holocaust. While I am not necessarily making judgments about any of these religions when I think of these things, I am thinking of associations that these religions provide. I believe that this is why Buddhism appeared so positively on the scale. Perhaps if I had read stories about terrible atrocities that have happened to, or because of, Buddhists, then this would have changed.
I think this dovetails nicely with what Gladwell (2005) discussed in the sections of Blink to which we listened. He claimed that we can make connections more quickly with pairs of ideas that are already related, rather than those whose connections are new to us. If we are all “little pieces of associating machinery” (p. 41), as James (1899/1962) claimed, then it is true that we make connections between certain words and ideas, and it makes sense that we would be quicker at making a connection if they are already associated. This explains why it was easier for me to place Buddhism with “good” and the other religions with “bad,” since negative aspects of the three other religions came through to me more strongly. But what does this have to do with the process of learning?
We can assume that we would be able to learn things more efficiently and more quickly if we already have some associations with those objects. This is already used in our school systems, as subjects build upon prior knowledge and make connections with what students have already learned. What may not be so clear are all the associations and connections that students are making unconsciously, that the instructor may or may not be intentionally provoking. We heard in Gladwell's book how students can make snap judgments, which turn out to be accurate, on a teacher’s effectiveness with just two seconds of a silent video clip. Similarly, one can assume that students could also pick up teachers’ moods and ideas about a subject unconsciously. If the teacher seems disinterested in a subject or brings in bias about it, the students’ unconscious is surely noticing this. This could affect how the students relate to the subject, and how much interest (and therefore passive attention) they have for that content. This could have a powerful influence on learning. James (1899/1962) mentioned this as well, as he said that “above all, the teacher must himself be alive and ready, and must use the contagion of his own example” (p. 53). A teacher should make sure that they are not exhibiting negative ideas about a subject or any of the students, as the students’ unconscious will observe these and add them to the pile of associations the students may already have about that subject.
It seems that we would also be able to remember things easier if they were connected to our associations, as the unconscious would be able to latch on to these much more quickly. As James (1899/1962) claimed, “the ‘secret of a good memory’ is thus the secret of forming diverse and multiple associations with every fact we care to retain” (p. 61). By forming more associations, our unconscious would be able to make connections faster, so that we could remember some ideas and use those ideas to make decisions, without any conscious effort at all. This can be witnessed right now, in our current studies. I feel I am learning behaviorism and the IAT information much more easily, and will be able to better hold it in my memory, because I can associate it with what I have read and discussed in James' book. We may be getting a little “meta” with this. :)
Finally, these unconscious associations and biases can greatly affect the future behavior of students. Gladwell (2005), and the documentary excerpt on implicit associations regarding height, provided many examples of cases where race, height, etc., can negatively affect people’s performance on tests and provide prejudices against other people when making friends, hiring new employees, or making decisions. Since James (1899/1962) defined education as “the organization of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies to behavior” (p. 15), it would follow that it is important that students’ unconscious “internal computers,” as Gladwell referred to them, are able to help the students make the best decisions. Gladwell explained that we can break our unconscious bias about minorities by exposing ourselves to minority races frequently, so that we can become comfortable. It would seem that teachers should attempt to recreate this effect, by exposing children to as many things in the world as possible, so that students do not develop these negative associations that can affect their future behavior.
I really enjoyed these implicit association tests. Do you see anything I have said in this post that relates to your own IAT experience?
References:
Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
James, William. (1899/1962). Talks to Teachers on Psychology. New York: Dover Publications.
A documentary excerpt focusing on men's height, provided by Dr. Usher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln7p95kZgi4
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