Implicit Association Test (Essay Sample)

Implicit Association Test
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Institutional Affiliation
How Attitude is Formed
Attitude is defined as the “emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing, or event.” CITATION Che20 \l 1033 (Cherry, 2020) Attitude can be formed in several ways. The first way in which attitude can be formed is through experience. People will react to a certain issue or thing depending on the past experiences they have had with it. The experiences can either be their own or those of other people. The second way is through observation. People learn a lot of things by looking at how other people behave or how they do things. By observing how people are doing things or how they are behaving it is possible to develop an attitude. The other way that attitude is formed is through learning; this is best displayed through advertising. The advertisers make use of classical conditioning. They display people enjoying using a product over and over again until the audience starts to think they know that feeling. They make people learn about something making them develop an attitude. The other way that attitudes are formed is through operant conditioning CITATION Che20 \l 1033 (Cherry, 2020). When people around you constantly express an opinion about something that you are involved in, you tend to develop an attitude that is aligned with those expressions. If people constantly complain about your driving habits, you are likely to develop a negative attitude towards it.
How Personal Implicit Biases Form Understandings
Implicit biases are described as the unconscious attitude, reaction, or perception towards an issue or people based on race, gender, religion, or age. Implicit biases are developed from a very young age in people even without their knowledge especially through observation CITATION Ber19 \l 1033 (Berghoef, 2019). They can be changed or unlearned with a lot of effort and time. In some cases, the implicit biases do not align with the proclaimed beliefs CITATION Ohi \l 1033 (Ohio State University). The most common form of implicit biases is implicit racism which has been identified in schools, law courts, restaurants, and workplaces CITATION Ber19 \l 1033 (Berghoef, 2019). Implicit biases bring understandings locally, nationally, and internationally through ideology clustering. Implicit biases bring understanding locally because people who are living in a common area have grown up observing and implicitly forming the same bias. They will understand and agree on a certain biased issue even when they know otherwise. Implicit biases bring understanding nationally as people in a country will have gone through the same issues. For an instant, people in the US are likely to have the same implicit bias when they see a white police officer arresting a black driver. Internationally, implicit biases help people from different regions of the world react in the same way; it is possible to predict the reaction based on previous implicit situations.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the IAT as a Research Tool
IAT as a research tool is characterized by several strengths and weaknesses. One of its biggest strengths is its ability to measure feelings rather than facts; measuring feelings has been impossible for most tools. Feelings are especially very difficult to measure because most people are not willing to speak out. The other advantage of IAT is the anonymity of the respondent. Respondent’s personal information is not revealed but only the results are; these facts make it easy for respondents to provide more honest details. The test is also self-administered giving the respondent more confidence. Social psychologists make use of these strengths to establish how the reaction and attitude of a person are affected by the actions and behavior of other people around