From: The Washington Post
‘Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People’ by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald
The Washington Post:
What if we’re not the magnanimous people we think we are? That seems to be the conclusion of the past few decades of social psychology research. Freudstuck a dagger in the comforting idea of complete, conscious self-awareness, but experimental findings suggest that not only do we not know ourselves, if we did, we might not invite ourselves over for dinner.
This research takes Freud’s dagger into our vanity and twists it. One of the greatest sources of torque is what’s called the Implicit Association Test, a computer-based assessment that susses out unconscious biases. One version, the Race IAT, reveals that 75 percent of its takers, including some African Americans, have an implicit preference for white people over black people. The story of the IAT, and of prejudice in general, is told in the accessible and authoritative “Blind Spot” by Mahzarin R. Banaji, one of the test’s chief developers, and Anthony G. Greenwald, the researcher who created it in 1994.
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Comments
As a Professor of Psychology/Sociology, I certainly feel the work of both Greenwald and Banaji turns to be what I have been waiting for all these years of teaching. Living and working in such a diversified society where the young generation is working hard to bridge the gap, I would like to use this book as my text for my classes this coming Semester. What I heard so far is just what the doctor ordered. The use of IAT is a giant step in the field of psychology and Sociology.
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