Hacker News Reader

Implicit association tests have little predictive validity--that is, if we know that someone has more "unconscious bias" in an IAT, we should expect zero difference in their behavior.

See:

http://www.law.virginia.edu/pdf/faculty/reassessingpredictiv...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239732934_Predictin...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.12288/abstra...

View on HN

I think many people posess a self-image that race is not a salient characteristic in their thoughts and they describe this as being "not racist". There is a premise in discussions about race that being racist (judging someone because of their race) and acting racist (treating someone differently based on their race) are two different things. We act not-racist to prove that we are not-racist in our brains. The accusation of racism can be rebutted by the argument that you can't read my mind.

The implicit bias test shows that either this brain-focused definition of racism is wrong, or we need to accept that we are more racist that we would like to admit.

Great studies. I always felt something was off about the IAT and couldn't tell exactly why. Maybe it primes us for racism/sexism/whatever it's testing?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com