Unconscious Preferences

You have completed the Judaism – Other Religions IAT.

Your Result

Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Judaism compared to Other Religions.

Anti-Semitism is widely believed to have declined in the last century, but nevertheless still exists, and may now exist more in implicit than overt form. This test uses symbols associated with Judaism, and contrasts them with combined symbols of several other religions. This design was intended to create a more general test than one that contrasted Judaic symbols with those of just a single other religion.

This test comes from a controversial series of online tests run by the University of Harvard: You can (allegedly) see whether you have unconscious preferences in terms of race, sexuality, religion, weight, gender, etc etc etc… Have a go if you dare!

Published in: on November 18, 2008 at 12:38 pm Comments (7)

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  1. That was a complete waste of time and made me very grumpy. When I got to the last part where you have to go as fast as you can, I kept getting them wrong because the instructions, which appeared beneath my screen kept changing so I ended up just hitting the keys randomly until the test had finished and then I didn’t score because I had too many errors. Well of course I did. I couldn’t see the instructions.

  2. ah… that’s unfortunate. Perhaps this reveals your “unconscious preference” for pen-and-paper, rather than computers…

  3. Almost definitely because I did have a tantrum with my computer but I still don’t know why I had to scroll down each time to find out which key I had to hit for right or left.

  4. I found the test had more to do with memory than association. I quite enjoyed the challenge of remembering which sides you had to click for what. I quite liked the rhythm of “jewish, good, other, bad” etc in perfect sync with “left, right” running through my head. I dont know if it proved anything about my religious leanings (I ended up with the same response as you Matt) but it did make me feel really skillful and ridiculously impressed with myself!

  5. Well I managed to complete it now – the instructions appeared on my screen – but I appear to have done a different test. My result was:

    Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Progress compared to Restore.

    Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Markets compared to Regulation.

    Now this is flawed rubbish. It only suggested I liked progress and markets because the synonyms were easier not automatic responses of my preference at all. In fact I prefer regulation and restoration – not greed and exploitation of the environment (markets and “progress”).

    Silly test :-)

  6. Yeah I do find the whole thing rather suspect. I’m happy enough having a “slight preference” for Judaism; but I think the test would be incredibly easy to manipulate. As you say though Carolyn, at least it makes for a fun test of finger skills!

    Steph: There is a reasonable amount of interest in the department here on theological critiques of free-market capitalism: I’d quite like to do a post about this, if I get around to it… perhaps attempting to contribute a Pauline perspective to this extremely worthwhile discussion.

  7. Now that really does sound interesting – but I wouldn’t use the results of this test! Apart from anything else I was busy drinking a cup of tea at the same time and getting distracted by Rachmanonov so I wasn’t a reliable participant. :-)


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