Looking over which of the different IAT tests I wanted to take, I selected the Able vs. Disabled bodied bias test. Having struggled with a structural hip problems for a significant portion of my life, I have experienced what it is like to be temporarily disabled. Thankfully now, after multiple surgeries, I am healed and working my way back to being completely able-bodied again. No, I am not nor was I ever actually “disabled” in the sense that many people think of it, but I have received disability accommodations and extra support when needed because of my hip. But most if not all of my friends are able bodied, so we differ in terms of our experiences. Additionally, I have found that for some people, including myself, being “able” is a category that is fluid. For some it isn’t, but for others it is. That is why I decided to select that particular test to evaluate my own biases and compare them to my experiences.<\/p>\n
The test showed me that I have a moderate automatic preference for able bodied people. I’m not sure quite how they determine that result but I’ll take it for what it is. There is something really uncomfortable about confronting bias, especially being told what your biases are. But consciousness is really important. Dr. Bezio’s conversation about media representation and breaking stigmas and stereotypes makes this clear. Being aware that we all have implicit biases (rooted in our “lizard brains”) is the first step towards disrupting them in ourselves and society at large. Listening to new music or watching a TV show may help us break down biases and being conscious of them in the first place is a great start. Being aware of a problem is always the first step to fixing it. So even if I feel uncomfortable with my own biases, I’m working to fix them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Looking over which of the different IAT tests I wanted to take, I selected the Able vs. Disabled bodied bias test. Having struggled with a structural hip problems for a significant portion of my life, I have experienced what it is like to be temporarily disabled. Thankfully now, after multiple surgeries, I am healed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-responses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6332,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097\/revisions\/6332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}