Implicit Biases

Harvard's Implicit Bias quizzes are meant to raise awareness of unconscious tendencies we have toward a certain type of person in comparison to another person; however, I do not feel that the methodology behind the organization of the quizzes achieved the intent. Often, memorizing certain words and associations allows the taker to overlook natural inclinations to particular responses. I took three online quizzes through https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit: Gender-Career IAT, Weight IAT, and Weapons IAT. Two of the quizzes showed weak or no association for a certain preference. The Weapons IAT results showed "a moderate association of Black Americans with Weapons compared to White Americans." I was fairly certain going into the Weight AIT test that my results would show a preference for thin people versus fat people, but my results certainly did not indicate this. The Weapons IAT seemed to be testing whether the quiz taker viewed Black Americans as being more "aggressive" than White Americans. I think this test was much more prone to mistakes than the other two tests, which altered the results.

I want to take this time to reflect more upon the intent behind the results rather than the results themselves. I believe many people to be unaware of implicit biases in everyday dealings with other individuals. Often depending on our upbringing, personal experience and our reaction to it, as well as cultural tendencies we are inclined to treat some people with more respect or deference than others. In regards to leadership, biases can hinder a leader's ability to inclusiveness as well as ethical treatment of all participants in the leadership process. A leader is also less likely to consider the opinions of someone whom they do not respect as strongly. Taking these quizzes forces you to consider the complexity behind interactions with others and your role - especially your ability to chance perhaps unconscious reactions.

In addition to attending school full-time, I also work as an assistant manager at an apartment community. Fair Housing, the federal laws that seek to ensure fairness in housing practices for many protected classes, is a big part of that we do. It seems like across the industry, professionals are afraid to be perceived as violating Fair Housing and thus there are many measures in place to make it - at least appear - to be fair and equal across the board. I would argue that it's not. Most properties and the management in place hold biases, especially against certain races or ethnicities as well as cultural/religious traditions. These biases are often based on negative personal experiences with individuals that have these attributes such as the condition an apartment in left in, a disagreement, a cultural misunderstanding or even ignorance. I always make the effort to learn about religions or cultures different than my own to understand why certain things may happen and them impress that upon my staff. In this way, even despite my own inherent biases, I use education to cancel out or lessen their impact. Speaking positively or giving an alternative viewpoint is an essential point on creating a more ethical environment where progressive change as a greater opportunity to occur.

Paige