I have previously taken an IAT in one of my psychology classes so I was aware of what this test would be like and how you could receive results that you did not expect to reflect your biases. I decided to take the Gender-Career IAT. I was both surprised and not surprised by my results that I have little to no automatic preference between gender and family or career. I was surprised because of the history of our society where women are assumed to stay at home and care for the family while men are supposed to be the provider for the family and have a job. This concept of an ideal American family is still prevalent in society today. Going into the IAT I thought this might have more of an impact on my results that it did. However, I am not surprised by my results from the IAT since both of my parents hold the same type of job and worked pretty much the same hours while I was growing up. While many of my friends had a stay at home mom, it was normal for me not to see both of my parents until much later in the evening because they were at work and are both very driven in their careers. Since they had almost identical schedules, they generally split their time the same between their career and family. I believe my own experience with both my parents being dedicated to both career and family influenced my results from this IAT.
Critical Thinking
I had the more “traditional” family set-up with my father working long-hours and not getting home until later in the day and my mom being at home and the go to figure in the household. I am curious how my life-experiences would affect the results of the Gender-Career IAT. Whether through extended family or friends I was surrounded by various family set-ups, but I suspect my upbringing would bias me more despite varied exposure.
I had the same type of approach except with the Asian Foreigner and White European American IAT. I grew up with a white father and a Japanese mother. Initially, I thought my results would be skewed heavily towards a strong connection with White Europeans with Americans and Asians as Foreigners. However, my results only showed a slight connection. The way you are brought up affects your morals more than you know.