Bias on Campus

We are judged on how much we know and how we perceive something by the results of the tests we take. It is true that for the most part the results of the tests do go hand in hand with the person's knowledge or preference of the given field of relevance. But there will be cases in which the provided results can be inaccurate, or even the opposite. Tests such as implicit association tests (IAT), test a person's preference between two subjects can have varying results.

I have taken the IAT on "Age" and the results do not reflect my true preference. The IAT on age resulted in "Your data suggests a strong automatic preference for Young compared to Old". This test trained the user to associate both words and pictures to either "young" or "old". It was measured by the speed that the user presses the associated keys to give an end result. If the user is too slow, it would reset and have them complete it again, but faster. I learned that they measure it by speed because from how fast we associate a word or picture to a subject, the stronger of a bias we have towards the subject. The results I received seem to be too bias towards the young, although I am quite neutral as to which side of age I prefer.

On campus, my friends are generally around my age, but that is because in my classes, the students are around my age range. If there are older students in the class, I do try to befriend them as they are able to offer a wider range of knowledge based on their experiences.

Although I am just one person, there will be others with results from IAT's that might not reflect how they are. For the most part, the results obtained from IAT's will reflect the person's bias towards one subject over the other. Even without taking such tests, by watching others, people can make generalized assumptions as to how people have a preference for one thing over the other. They can do so without having to take IAT's and can most likely assume correctly from the people the person is around with.