Do You Know Your Own Biases? Take This Test

For Your Consultation/Consideration: Take the Implicit Associations Tests.  Actually, take a few.  And make sure you have a plan for what comes next...you're going to need one.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Beyond the Training Podcast. This is Mr. Robert, and I know that you are expecting me and Jamie to have a conversation right now about our mental health. This is a new segment we have in Beyond the Training Podcast where we talk about well, our consulting in a different way. So this is called FYC or for your consideration. For your consultation. I really figured out because as those of you who mightn't be consultants out there in the world know, when we consult, we're just really providing our client an opportunity to consider something differently than they had already before. And they don't always do the things that we say. So this is something for you to consider, for something you to think about. And if you like it, great, come back. We've got more. If you don't, well, we understand because I'm just a consultant talking into the microphone. So for today's episode of for your consideration, I want you to consider the implicit association test. Now, if you're a fan of this pod, you've heard this before. We've talked about this before. Uh, the implicit association tests, there are actually a number of them that are out there, and so you don't have to follow the one that I'm talking about, but I really, really like Project Implicit, which comes out of Harvard University. And so you were to Google it, you would just Google Project Implicit, implicit association test, and you'll find a number of opportunities to learn about your own implicit associations. Why, you might be saying, you might be asking, why should I take the implicit association test, Robert? Well, here's a number of reasons that that can help you in the work that you're doing, working to become more impactful in your work, not just great intentions. So a little bit about the uh Project Implicit uh implicit association test. First and foremost, it is an online tool where you're able to think about and and learn about your own, let's call them social attitudes, right? The things that you think about the world that are based in the labels, the uh associations, the stereotypes that we have. So whether you have uh ideas about someone who is Arab or Muslim, someone who has a disability, people who are presidents, uh people who are Native American or Asian American or uh of a certain generation or have a certain skin tone or follow a certain religion, you get the idea. There are uh 13 different implicit associations tests that you can take. And we have been working with a number of groups, individuals, communities, and working with this implicit association test to get one some data about how your brain works, two, an opportunity to look at something to to um measure how your biases work, how our biases work, and where. And then three, it's it's a conversation starter for sure. So it's not just in a training that I can tell you, yeah, you have a biased brain and and your neurology works in this direction, and it's human nature to have biases and make these implicit associations automatically. This is something you can take with you, and it's about you specifically. And then if you and maybe one other person in your home or another person that you're working with, or uh maybe your whole team is taking these implicit associations tests, now we all can sit around the table and say, Whoa, as a group, we all have some implicit associations around who's supposed to be in a career based on their gender identity. Oh man, and we've got this position that we're hiring for, and if we believe that this is a male-oriented position, or gender-oriented position for that matter, not whether it's male, female, or non-binary, then we should probably think about that. So, the implicit association test gives you an opportunity to take them. It's uh something you gotta take on your computer. So if you're trying to do it on your phone or a laptop or something like that, it's gonna be kind of awkward because of the way that you have to push the buttons to test how your brain is is moving. So you need the keyboard to be able to do that. But when you do it at the end of the test, and it can take, I think, about seven or eight minutes per test, depending on the test that you take. You get a printout, or you can print out a uh PDF of your results, and it's gonna say that you have a tendency to believe, trust, uh, be interested in uh befriend a certain group or over another, or you have a tendency not to believe, trust, uh, hire uh a certain group, or you might even land in neutral, and so even if you do land in neutral, that's information for you to have as well as you move through your world and through your work. Especially if you're working towards greater inclusion, greater belonging, it's hard for you to do that if you're not paying attention to the fact that your brain has its own stereotypes that have been implanted there and programmed there for so long, and they interact all the time. So take the implicit association test, and then once you have the PDF, I really want you to go over them with someone. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't say find yourself a consultant, a person who is trained in implicit biases and explicit associations, someone who has an anti-racist lens, an equity lens, because that information might not be as fun, uh, and it might not be that great a conversation if you don't have someone who is interested in your learning, is interested in your development, and somebody who likes you enough to tell you the truth and at the same time not point their finger at you and and make you feel guilty about it because it might make you feel guilty, or it might make you feel uh in some other kind of way for that matter, when you learn that you might have a different perspective of the way uh you see the you think that you see the world. For example, a number of folks that we uh have take the implicit association tests uh identify as women, women with careers, women with in in science, and one of the tests or a couple of the tests help you to look at well, do I have a bias about who should be and who uh who shouldn't be in the workforce? Do am I more likely to believe or associate science careers with men and uh either at-home careers or liberal arts careers with women? Well, you might be surprised to find that a lot of women find that out about themselves, and even as a woman in a science career, as a scientist, she would still have that as a part of her implicit association, so part of the way that her brain works. So it's not uh uh something that you can avoid. You have a biased brain, you work through implicit associations. What this is nice for is having some data that helps you to think when you get to the the dining room table, when you get to the hiring table, when you're interacting with people in your community, you have the ability to think, oh man, maybe this is one of those implicit associations that I have coming up for me, and I can work through that to make a greater impact on the work and on the people that I'm around. And you may be wondering, especially if you've this is the first time you've listened to our call, well, Robert, what implicit associations do you have? You're the DEI game, but you don't have any associations. Oh nay, nay. I have taken all of the implicit associations tests, and actually matter of fact, I take them uh about every six months or so. One, because I want to check and make sure that what I'm saying is truth, but also because if I think that I'm doing great and and and don't check in, then I'm likely actually to dip demonstrate my biases in a way that um won't connect to the impact that I'm trying to have. So, hi, I'm Mr. Robert. I I have a number of implicit associations uh around people's skin tone and and their racial identity or how I would identify them. I have uh implicit associations around body type and how that connects to gender identity. I have implicit associations around religion, organized religion that uh you can see, you know, when when someone is wearing something that you can see. And that doesn't mean that I'm out here trying to discriminate against people in certain identities all the time because of who I think they are. It does mean that my brain is automatically making decisions uh about someone or something or some concept. And if I don't do something about it, if I if I don't pause and think a little bit differently, then I'm likely to make a decision that is disconnected from how I truly feel about the world and the people around me. That is the most important piece, is that these implicit associations, they're not about how you believe you see the world, they're programmed into your brain that the world has given you about how to see the world. Now you might agree with some of those, some of those stereotypes, some of those implicit associations, you might think, well, yeah, that president is who I think they are. And so when I see a person who looks like a president or a person who says that they want to be a president, I'm already knowing whether or not I would vote for them. That might connect to your police system. But in case it doesn't, this is information that you're gonna want to have and information you can act upon. And you can do it like me every six or eight months, uh maybe once a year. And the more you talk about it, the more you keep this from being a taboo, the more you're going to learn about yourself and the people around you. So, for your consideration for this episode of FYC, we recommend you log on to Project Implicit, take an implicit association test, and then don't do it alone. Have someone with you so that you can talk about what comes up and really process through what you're learning about yourself and your brain. And then work towards improving it. Work towards thinking about your implicit associations and the people that you work with differently. It will be hard. It could be hard. It could be, maybe it won't be as hard as I think it will be for you. It could be hard, and it could also be very instructive. So that's why we want you to do it with support. And certainly, if you want to talk to a DEI or diversity, equity, inclusion practitioner, you can send us an email at impact at seven-focus.com and we'll have a conversation with you about it as well. Because as after all, we are consultants in this work. So this has been a really short for your consideration on the Beyond the Training podcast. We really appreciate you all being here and listening. Hopefully, this has been a little bit of something you'll take into consideration. If you have questions, send us an email or check us out on social media, reply to the pod, text us in, you know how to get a hold of us. So we will see you all next time.