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| How to Work at Changing Those Nasty Implicit Biases that Undermine Your Conscious Attitudes and Beliefs | ||||||
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| Social psychologists have learned that when we contract the muscles we use to smile, we send a signal to our brain that releases "feel-good" chemicals. By holding the pencil in your mouth without letting your lips touch, you were contracting those smiling muscles! The positive affect that this can produce, coupled with the positive story you were reading hopefully helped to create a positive association with the race you were looking at. Similarly, by pairing a negative story to a particular race, you were likely encouraging your brain to make similar associations in the future (such as when taking the IAT). Interesting, huh?
Other ways to try and improve your score 1. Try it again, but this time intentionally smile. Does it make a difference? 2. Spend a day reflecting on stereotypes and prejudice and the negative effects it could have on you or someone you care about. Take the test again after your day of reflection. 3. Try not to isolate yourself from groups that are different than you. Healthy and cooperative interaction with people from many different groups can decrease the effects of stereotypes. |
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