Implicit Associations. How biased are our SL users?

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

Are our SL players racist, ageist, biased? What implications does this kind of a study have for SL? Would our avatars make more friends with a certain racial type, age, or attire?

NOTE: It could take a while to work through these. So for now I'm going to add a poll that only deals with basic appearance. Results of poll are not public, please be honest.

I combined white and European, so that could screw up the figures since there is no comparison of, say, asian to black. *Oh, and I didn't even think about adding inconclusivity. Feel free to post if yours is inconclusive. This is obviously not scientific, but it will be fun to see what the general range of polarized people fall into.

Moved to Off-Topic.

These tests cant tell you if YOU have bias at all. I think this is fase.. They rely on many many many results to show trends.

Personally I think I'm not a very good sobject, because I develope spacial coralations and then they throw up a switch, and I have to make a quick judgement? If I make a quick judgement, I don't think of the new positions, but rely on the original position of the category when I went through the first round.. It's conditioned. The ideas that I develope are not "young old?" "good bad?" I think "right or left?" "Bad left" "Good right" "Old left" "young right"


That doesn't mean there is no useful data to be gained from this test, only that an individual result is TOTALLY meaningless, even when compared to the thousands of other results. My result or your result doesn't mean this or that.. It's a statistic only.

Different tests have differens purposes, and I think this one is not designed to give out meaningful personal results.

I'd have to agree with Baba. Once you learn the associations in the first half of the test, switching associations in the second half is difficult, regardless of what the associations are. Assuming that the order is switched randomly for each user, you can compile general trends, but individual results don't really mean much.

Of course, that observation in itself hints at the deeper issue: human beings form associations quickly, but find it more difficult to change those associations once formed. If you learn to associate blue with triangles and red with circles, then you're going to be less comfortable working with red triangles and blue circles (and that wouldn't be a bad 'control' for this study).

I'm totally biased against squares, but I think hexagons are *hot*. Especially purple ones, WOO!

I actually voted on the poll before I took the test--assuming that I knew what my results would be And I did. I have a bias toward Native Americans and associate white with foreign. I am Native American, grew up on a reservation, and have the biases that come with that background.

Also think the results of the poll are interesting. Why are people taking the poll about Native Americans more so than the other groups listed? Because it's the safest group to have a bias toward? Why is that?

I think the fact that there are few people of color in SL has to do with costs associated with membership: powerful computers, credit cards, a capitalist culture...all of which contribute toward people in the lowest economic groups not having access. Who are the people in the lowest economic groups?

Finally--the few people of color I've met in SL have chosen to make themselves look white or lighter skinned. Because I am light skinned irl I chose light skin, but it is interesting that others who are not chose to also be light skinned. What does this say about our possible internalized oppression, biases, fear, etc.?

(at the time I looked at this thread, more people had a bias toward Native American)