A powerful new psychological tool, the Implicit Association Test, shows that as many as 90 to 95 percent of us display unconscious roots of prejudice. The test, developed by UW Psychology Professor Anthony Greenwald and Yale Professor Mahzarin Banaji, measures people's implicit or unconscious evaluations and beliefs about groups. It does so by testing strong, automatic associations people make--even people who regard themselves as nonprejudiced.

The test has been adapted for the Internet, and has been taken more than 225,000 times since it was placed online in September 1998. The Web site has four short tests that measure unconscious roots of racism, ageism, gender stereotyping, and self-esteem, plus a fifth test that looks at academic preferences for arts or mathematics. Each takes about five minutes to complete.

Greenwald and Banaji believe that unconscious prejudice may occur despite people's wishes and result from the culture they live in and the culture's attitudes towards stigmatized groups. A culture leaves an imprint on mental structure, they explain, and many people have more or less the same mental imprint.

While they find the test results surprising and troubling, they believe that the test ultimately can have a positive effect. "The same test that reveals these roots of prejudice has the potential to let people learn more about, and perhaps overcome, these disturbing contents of their minds," they say.

[Winter 1999 - Table of Contents]