Module 1: IAT

I took the Gender – Career IAT and the results suggest that I have moderate association of Male with Career and Female with Family compared to Female with Career and Male with Family.  I thought it was interesting.  Even though I agree with the answer to my test I don’t think it would be a good representation of whether or not I truly unconscientiously felt that way.  When I watched the videos on short vs. tall and black vs. white I don’t necessarily agree with the fact that this proves what we are unconscientiously thinking.  I know that I had trouble doing the test when they switched sides but I don’t think it has to do with what I unconscientiously think.  In the auto book Gladwell talked about how you can take the test as many different times with the first pairing being different but the results will still be the same.  But, I believe I had been conditioned to push one button then when I had to switch, I would get mixed up and want to push the other.  Another thing, when I took the test the first association was female with family and male with career then they switch male with family and female with career.  Which makes me wondered if I didn't do better because my fingers were conditioned at first to put females with family and males with career.  If I took the test again and the first association was males with family and females with career will the results be different?  I believe the results would be different.

The Free Dictionary website defines learning as the act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill.  There are many ways in which people learn but we have been discussing how people learn through association.  People associate what they are learning with previous experiences.  They will recall from their memory previous experiences that are exactly like or similar to what they are learning, which in turn will effect their behavior.  For example, I was out to dinner with my niece and her mom when my niece was about to do something she wasn’t supposed to do.  All her mother did was raise her eyebrows and she stopped immediately.  I know everyone at some point in his or her life has gotten the eyebrow raise and everyone knows what it means. “You better stop if you know what’s good for you.”  So my niece associates the eyebrow raise with something not very good from the past and stops the behavior immediately.  However for someone else the eyebrow raise can mean something completely different.

I couldn’t use just one so here are the two that I liked the most:

“Their education consists in the organizing within them of determinate tendencies to associate one thing with another, impressions with consequences, these with reactions, those with results, and so on indefinitely.” (James, 1899, p. 41)

“In the same person, the same word heard at different times will provoke, in consequence of the varying marginal preoccupations, either one of a number of diverse possible associative sequences.” (James, 1899, p.42)

References:

The Free Dictionary. Retrieved on 10-31-11 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 8-98.

James, W. (1899/1962). Talks to teachers on psychology and to students on some of life’s ideals. New York: Dover. (Original work published 1899).