FAQ
# I had to group White items (faces or names) together with pleasant words first. I then found it difficult when I later had to group Black items with pleasant words. Was that because I had done the task first with White items and pleasant words?
Answer: The order in which tests are administered does make a difference in magnitude of what we call 'IAT effects'. However, the difference is small and recent changes to the test have sharply reduced the influence of order. Because of this order effect, the orders used for IATs presented on this website are assigned at random. If you want to check whether the order made a difference for you, you can take the test again and complete it if you get assigned to the reverse order. If you do take the test twice in different orders and get different outcomes, the best estimate of your result is intermediate between the two.
# Might a result indicating preference for White over Black be due to greater familiarity of the White items (faces or names) than the Black items?
Answer: The reasonable suspicion that familiarity can influence findings has been tested in research. In several laboratory studies, when familiarity of names was deliberately varied for the Black-White or Young-Old tasks, the effects are the same as when the White (or Young) names are more familiar. This makes it clear that automatic preferences are not caused by greater familiarity. All the faces (Black and White) used in this IAT should be equally unfamiliar because they are all computer-constructed by the technique called morphing -- none is the face of a real person. For more information see Ottaway et al., Dasgupta et al., and Rudman et al.
# Do Black participants show a preference for Black over White?
Answer: The research evidence is not sufficiently developed to answer this question. Although the majority of White respondents show a preference for White over Black, the responses from Black respondents are more varied. Although some Black participants show liking for White over Black, others show no preference, and yet others show a preference for Black over White. We are investigating this research question further. The IAT procedure that uses faces rather than names (our previous format) will allow us to answer this question more effectively.
# If my IAT shows automatic White preference, does that mean that I'm prejudiced?
Answer: This is a very important question. Social psychologists use the word 'prejudiced' to describe people who endorse or approve of negative attitudes and discriminatory behaviour toward various out-groups. Many people who show automatic White preference on the Black-White IAT are not prejudiced by this definition. These people are apparently able to function in non-prejudiced fashion partly by making active efforts to prevent their automatic White preference from producing discriminatory behaviour. However, when they relax these active efforts, these non-prejudiced people may be likely to show discrimination in thought or behaviour. The question of relation between implicit and explicit attitudes is of strong interest to social psychologists, several of whom are doing research on that question for race-related attitudes.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/racefaqs.html