Implicit Attitude Test – My Results and Bias
This week I took the Implicit Attitude Test with the subject of age. This test made up mostly of matching words and pictures of people with categories of good or bad, along with a few questions. My result stated “Your responses suggested a moderate automatic preference for Young people over Old people”. I find this personally interesting, I see, as a young person myself I may prefer people in my age range. In general I have always help older people with high regard, I think they carry lots of wisdom and experience. So I find it interesting the I would have such a bias.
If I was a hiring manager I would have no idea I had such a automatic bias. It is unfair to a older person to have a disadvantage at getting a job purely because of their age. I think older people bring a lot to the table in a work environment. They bring lots of life experience, also in my opinion my be harder workers then many people in the younger category. Thats all my opinion though. In general this test brought up a great point. I’m not a hiring manager, but I can only imagine all the hiring mangers out there that might have a bias that they don’t even realize they have. That could have a great affect on many perfectly capable individuals not getting a job.
Not in a attempt to make anyone feel guilty, but I think any hiring manager should take this test, and the other test in the different categories. Just for the fact that they can have this knowledge and maybe that helps them look deeper at an individual that they normally would have inherently discarded. All they might need is the realization, just like me, I did not know I would have help that bias and this helps me recognize that.
Sources:
- https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1 (take the test I did yourself!)
