![]() The so-called Implicit Association Test, or IAT, has spawned a cottage industry of psychological research and has now been administered to hundreds of thousands of Americans. ![]() About a decade ago psychologists developed an instrument that they claim can actually tap into unconscious attitudes about minority groups of all sorts. A new study suggests that, unhappily, the answer is yes.īut let me back up just a bit. The big question is whether these unconscious animosities are potent enough to actually shape our actions, to make us do things we ourselves find shameful. A large and growing number of psychologists now argue that a welter of prejudices are simmering just below the surface of society: prejudices against many ethnic groups, against women, gays, the elderly, and outsiders like the homeless and drug addicts. In this view, even the most progressive of thinkers may harbor dark, discriminatory impulses that can surface when least expected or desired.Īnd it's not just race. But many social critics believe strongly that racism never really went away, that bias against blacks has simply been driven underground in our era of political correctness. That kind of racial bias is largely gone from the world my kids are growing up in. I rarely encountered black families in the local diners, department stores or movie theaters. Neighborhoods were either white or black, not yet mixed, and very few of my black friends were "tracked" into my academically advanced high school classes. I grew up on the Jersey shore in the 1950s, an era of fairly blatant racism.
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