Well here are some of those "implicit prejudice" tests if anyone wants to see if they make sense

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Well I am always such a sucker for taking tests like that, so I went ahead and took it. I *hate* tests where they stress that it's a speed test and you have to do it as fast as possible, . I get all flustered and nervous over that. But I did the test and it wasn't as bad (speedwise) as I had feared. My result was:
which is what I would have said about it if speaking just with my conscious mind.

Interesting. My result:

"Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Fat People compared to Thin People."

I did two of the demo tests, and found them quite interesting. I had ended up with a slight preference for thin people compared to fat people. I was intrigued by the part of the test that had Thin/Bad on the left side, and Fat/Good on the right side. I found I had to slow right down in my responses. This test said a bit more about me than I liked. Eye opening.

Which other one did you do? I took the Race one - with some trepidation, fearing I might be a subconscious racist. According to this test I have "little to no automatic preference between African American and European American."

Funny, when I read the headline I thought the students were going to learn about the benefits of dietary fat.

Well, I'm relieved. My assessment was
Perhaps being in OA has taught me better than I realized.

Our subconscious is primed by the images we see. If we see large people, other marginalized portion of society, portrayed poorly then it primes our subconscious to make those associations. It's involuntary. It's so insidious that even people sharing the trait will have poor outcomes to their own race (or group), I'd imagine fat people would too. But I've heard a couple of weeks of positive imagery is enough to turn it around.

How often do we see positive things about fat people in the media? Pretty rarely! We're always being shown a sea of fat bellies walking down the street whenever they've got some sort of news about obesity.

I think when you grow up entrained to be prejudiced about a given group of people -- and they are the most common thing made fun of horribly in movies, stand-up, etc. -- and you get older and it's enforced by the alleged-education about nutrition in school telling you that only totally lazy gluttons get fat basically -- it's no wonder society at large is pretty hideously biased against fat people and obesity in general.

This test was difficult for me, since English is not my first language. But here is my very surprising (to me) result anyway.

"Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Thin People compared to Fat People.

The interpretation is described as 'automatic preference for Thin People' if you responded faster when Thin faces and Good words were classified with the same key than when Fat faces and Good words were classified with the same key. Depending on the magnitude of your result, your automatic preference may be described as 'slight', 'moderate', 'strong', or 'little to no preference'. Alternatively, you may have received feedback that 'there were too many errors to determine a result'."

Oh well ! I don't know what to think of this.

Patrick

Read "Blink", you'll understand why.

LOL, that's just what I was going to say!

It's true that my girlfriend and the ones before her are all very thin.


Hey thanks ! I added this book to my reading list.

Patrick