The Quizbowl Resource Center

One of the websites that is very interesting to me is the Implicit Associations website at Harvard. They have online "tests" to reveal subconscious biases we have individually.

They have a new implicit associations test on the Presidential Candidates. Take it and see which candidates you have implicitly a more positive association compared to the others.

Man, that was baffling--I quit halfway through, as I couldn't figure out what I was meant to do when the words "Hillary or Good" appear above a photo of her; you can hit "yes" or "no," but apparently there are correct answers to be given, as it will give you a red 'x' until you hit the other. I'm sure I just didn't read the instructions well enough and/or I'm too dumb for Harvard-based tests.

The directions are different each round.

I ended up with pretty much what I expected...Hillary and Obama high, with Hillary a little higher, and McCain low.

I have every single candidate exactly in the middle.

I indicated a moderate-high perspective on Obama, right in the middle for McCain, and moderate-low for Hillary.

ValenciaQBowl wrote:Man, that was baffling--I quit halfway through, as I couldn't figure out what I was meant to do when the words "Hillary or Good" appear above a photo of her; you can hit "yes" or "no," but apparently there are correct answers to be given, as it will give you a red 'x' until you hit the other. I'm sure I just didn't read the instructions well enough and/or I'm too dumb for Harvard-based tests.

Yeah... the directions may be a bit confusing but here's what you have to do. You have to hit "Yes" or "No" if you see a picture or a word that is associated with EITHER the given Presidential candidate OR the word GOOD. So if you see "Evil" you hit "no"... or if the Presidential Candidate is Hillary but you see a picture of Obama, you hit "no." But if you see a picture of Hillary, you hit "yes."

For me, it's interesting... from high to low, I had Hillary, Barack, then McCain... which is reverse of what I thought I regarded for the candidates.

Thanks, Tom--that clarifies it better than the instructions did. But I think I'll just go on working for Obama for what I think are conscious reasons and not sweat the unconscious.

I tried the Bush-Roosevelt one and found that I apparently prefer Bush to FDR pretty strongly.

This is news to me.

Surprisingly, Hilary over Barack...Not surprisingly, both over McCain.

It looks like they tried to do two "good" pics and two "bad" pics of each candidate, but I gotta say, one of the Obama pics was just awful -- it was really grainy and he looked homeless or something. That was just reflex for me to hit the bad key, even on the "Obama=Good" task.

Then again, he's not my preferred candidate anyway, so my results were likely not due to that. But picture selection is not insignificant.

That's also part of the test... the way the portraits capture the candidates plays a role in your perceptions of them.

This is stupid.

leftsaidfred wrote:I have every single candidate exactly in the middle.

Same here.

Exactly as I expected: Obama over Clinton over McCain.

I went through this test and the Asian American test. I thought the Asian American test picked up my biases rather well, but not as much on the candidate test. Each of Barack, Hillary, and McCain placed where I thought they would, but I couldn't help feeling that my errors were mostly random rather than how I felt toward any one particular candidate. It makes me really curious about the raw data.

Yes, the other tests are rather interesting. I am interested in how the candidates test differs from the general sociological tests they offer to the general public. Somehow it appears that the biases are much less pronounced with this year's Presidential candidates though one can still have demographic biases... but that's just based on my own observations.