IAT Experience & Results

The first Implicit Association Test topic I chose was the Gender-Career test. I chose this topic in particular because I believe both male and female should have equal responsibility for family and career. Though I was curious to see how accurate my results would turn out. The test first started off by asking a series of personal questions regarding my background, education, religion, and my parents’ occupations. Then the test turned into a two part timed questionnaire in which we had to determine male or female names with career or family occupations. The time limitation made me quite stressed towards the end as the test kept switching around the topics. This caused me to somewhat lose my coordination making me press the wrong keys even when I had the right answer in my head. My result turned out to predict that my unconscious believes that I moderately prefer males with careers and females with family occupations. I came to the conclusion that I must have gotten this result due to my exposure to my Persian culture in my family as I remembered myself finding it easier for me to relate male with the career and female with family on the test.

The second topic I chose was the “Young - Old' IAT”. I chose this as my second topic because I care for both young and old people and I don’t really have a preference of one over the other. I believe that they both have their own qualities. In other words, most young people are energetic and optimistic while the old are mostly wise and experienced. This test asked a series of questions about my family occupations, the way I was raised, and who my caregiver was, etc. Then there was another timed portion in which I had to distinguish some given words and pictures from young or old to good or bad. One thing I noticed while taking this test was that I had faster progress and I was more at ease than my previous test since this was my second time. My end result was that I have little to no automatic preference between Old and Young and that was what I believed.

Overall I found the IAT very interesting even though I felt a little rushed do to my short of time. I was amazed to find out that the test still managed to reveal some truths about my inner thoughts and beliefs. I feel this test can say a lot about ones unconscious preference. I look forward to possibly taking another IAT in the near future.