Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Blog 3: How Generalizations/Bias Underlie Argumentation

Take a Harvard Implicit Test!

Many of the arguments and disagreements when encounter regarding the nature of reality are a result of unstated assumptions and generalization about the world and people.  Being sensitive to these generalizations in argumentation takes time and practice.

Choose one or several Project Implicit tests.  The designations for the tests are perhaps overstated, but you may surprise yourself.  Complete at least one test and describe your results, including any surprises about yourself and the results.


13 comments:

  1. I took the Weapons, Presidential, and Sexuality IATs. The results showed that I have little to no preference between white people with harmless objects, black people with weapons and vice versa. It also showed that I have a slight preference towards Barrack Obama compared to recent presidents and that I have little to no preference between heterosexual and homosexual people.

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  2. I completed the young-old IAT and received the result: Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Young compared to Old.

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  3. I have a slight preference towards white people over black people (though I blame that more on how it took me a while to remember what category meant what), I prefer Lincoln over Obama, I have no preference between male/female and family/career.

    I'd like to do more of them, but I just don't have time. These results aren't shocking at all to me at all really. I knew most of this about myself, except I have to say that it sometimes did get hard trying to think which key I had to hit after they switched it, so maybe that had a difference on my results

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  4. Only had enough time for one so I did the Presidents IAT and received this result: Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy.

    This could possibly be that I really do hold no preference because I do feel either man has done anything worthy of U.S. recognition.

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  5. I took the Presidents Test and it said I had a slight preference for Barack Obama over previous presidents. I was a bit shocked because I have Republican views and am not in agreement with some/most of the things President Obama has done during his presidency. It was hard for me to take the bad words and categorize them with the previous presidents, especially with JFK and Reagan. However, I think I got the result I had because of the familiarity I had with the picture of Barack Obama versus the other previous Presidents, so I was able to match his picture up faster. It was wierd though, I'll try another one when I have more time.

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  6. I took the fat vs thin people IAT and it said i have no preference (Emma Bruno)

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  7. I took the Gender/Career IAT and it said that I had a moderate association of Male with Career and Female with Family compared to Female with Career and Male with Family. I said that this type of test was particularly useless, because it revealed nothing that important to me, but I would like to try others when I have time.

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  8. I took the President IAT, I have a moderate automatic preference for Bill Clinton compared to Barack Obama. i understand that, but it also said that i got a lot of the questions wrong and that may have messed with my results

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  9. I took the Asian IAT and basically my I And E buttons on the test werent functioning well so my results were i couldnt tell the difference between Europe Americans and Asian American

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  10. I took the weapons IAT and "Your data suggest a strong association of Black Americans with Weapons compared to White Americans." So i guess I'm just racist.

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  11. http://thebilzerianreport.com/why-do-black-americans-support-gun-control/
    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/

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  12. I took the flowers-insects IAT, and my data suggested that I had a moderate automatic preference of flowers over insects. I find this somewhat surprising, because although I have never grown a flower in my life, I have kept and bred several different species of insects.

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