Snap JudgementsPsychological test reveals hidden bias

On this test, you can’t really cheat or lie. In fact, it’s impossible to even know how you’re answering the questions. With just the stroke of a computer keypad, scientists are now taking an unusual approach to measure your "implicit" biases.

It’s called the Implicit Association Test, and its aim is to explore the unconscious roots of thinking and feeling. One of its principal investigators is Brian Nosek, a U.Va. assistant professor of psychology, who developed the test with two other colleagues at Harvard and the University of Washington.

The design of this Web-based test is brilliantly simple. You are asked to pair words with images, and the speed at which you sort and categorize is interpreted as an indication of how strongly those concepts are associated in your mind—in other words, your hidden prejudice.

So far, more than 3 million individuals have assessed their unconscious preferences in more than 90 subject areas. These run the spectrum, from political issues, ethnic groups, sports teams, age and gender to stereotypes of race and crime.

Subjects view a series of images on a computer screen and are asked to match positive words and negative words with the images. In the race test, for example, words like "wonderful" and "peace" or "evil" and "horrible" must be matched with faces of African Americans or whites. The delay in response time—measured in milliseconds—signifies internal conflict. And, with such a simple categorization, a hesitation measured in milliseconds can reflect a big influence on thought processes, says Nosek.

The focus of Project Implicit is public education and research. Since it was launched online in 1998, the response to the Implicit Association Test has been overwhelming. Nosek and his fellow investigators are sifting through a mountain of data from millions of tests. They now boast the largest database on implicit attitudes ever collected. Educators use the test as a vehicle for discussion; it’s also been used by businesses for diversity training and by law enforcement. The test has been translated into more than a dozen languages, most recently into Polish and Turkish.

Its enormous popularity may be due in part to the fact that it gives the test taker immediate results. The outcomes, however, can be unsettling. Many people believe they are not prejudiced and deny the test results when they indicate otherwise. This introduces important questions about whether evidence of an implicit bias is meaningful or important. Nosek notes that the scientific definition of bias simply means having a preference or inclination for something. Whether that preference is "morally justified," he says, is another matter. While you might be morally justified to feel a stronger preference for a family member over a stranger, for instance, in American culture, it’s a less tenable position if your preference is, say, for a particular ethnicity or age group.

"The first time I did the race test, I was stunned," Nosek says. As someone who espouses egalitarianism, Nosek was taken aback to learn from the results that he has a bias against black people. "My explicit beliefs aren’t the sole director of my everyday behavior," he says. "That’s the humbling part—those associations have an influence without me knowing about it."

While data shows that implicit biases are pervasive, they don’t necessarily mean that people always behave that way—the tests measure thoughts and feelings, not actions. And the latest research indicates that these biases are not intractable. Nosek says that people may be able to override their bias through sometimes subtle interventions if they know that it’s present, and have an effective means of adjusting it. The screensaver on Nosek’s computer in his Gilmer Hall office depicts photos of prominent blacks; by exposing himself to counterstereotypes, Nosek is attempting to reinforce positive associations to counter the negative ones he accumulated through everyday cultural experience.

People shouldn’t come away feeling pessimistic if they get negative feedback from the test, says Nosek. "I think the message of this work is optimistic, because we now have the potential for awareness of something that we cannot just look inside ourselves to see," he explains. "With knowledge, I can be more deliberate in directing my behavior to conform to my conscious intentions—despite my automatic reactions."

"The whole point of consciousness," he adds, "is to not be slaves to our unconscious."

return to top >

Naming Evil

At a time when the term "evil" gets bandied about by politicians as a convenient rhetorical device, one U.Va. researcher is taking a harder look at the concept of evil and how people use the word.

"I’m interested in how people talk about evil, either those who have committed it or suffered it," says Jennifer Geddes, an associate professor of religious studies and co-program director for the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. She’s currently studying Holocaust testimonies and memoirs at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Her book, The Rhetorics of Evil, is expected to be completed next year.

As she’s delved into the horrific stories from that period, she’s been struck by an essential difference between the perpetrators of evil and their victims in their reasons for telling their tales. "The perpetrators depict themselves as victims and try to elicit sympathy, whereas in victims’ testimonies, they are more interested in telling what happened and giving an account, rather than seeking out sympathy," she says.

The study of evil has traditionally been a problem for theology, but these days more scholars have become interested in the subject. As the term has gained wider usage in public discourse, and as people have become more aware of world events, particularly since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the word "evil" and what we mean by it has become a central question. "People are now more interested in why people do evil things," she observes. "There seems to be a raised ethical consciousness about the evils going on around the world."

And while most people agree on certain heinous acts that fall into the category of evil—child abuse, torture, premeditated murder—the actual definition of "evil" is elusive. Geddes notes that its misuse often leads to evil actions: "As soon as you label the other ‘evil,’ there are no limits on the violence or the suffering you can inflict."

"It’s a tricky word," she adds. "If it’s used to describe people, it’s a justification to do anything to them. If it’s used to describe a situation, it’s a moral imperative to do something about it. It’s used both to name injustices and to justify them."

return to top >

R&D In Brief

• U.Va. pathologists have found a way to reverse muscular dystrophy in mice, a promising step in the search to eradicate this muscle-wasting disease in humans. A research team led by Mani Mahadevan has shown for the first time that getting rid of poisonous ribonucleic acid in the muscle cells of mice can reverse myotonic dystrophy, the most common type of muscular dystrophy in adults, afflicting about 40,000 people in the U.S. Researchers duplicated the disease in mice but saw them return to normal—with fully restored heart and skeletal muscle function—when the toxic molecule was taken away. Mahadevan hopes the findings, published in the September issue of Nature Genetics, will lead to new therapies in the next few years.

• Traffic fatalities among senior citizens are expected to rise as the nation’s 75 million baby boomers age and continue to drive, according to a recent study co-authored by U.Va. engineering professor Richard Kent. He and fellow researchers studied police reports on thousands of vehicle accidents from 1992 to 2002 as a step toward developing new technologies to help seniors drive more safely.

Older people, despite driving at lower average speeds than younger drivers and with a greater likelihood of wearing seatbelts, are more likely to be injured in an accident than younger drivers. Among the study’s other findings: The typical elderly driver fatality involved a belted, sober driver pulling into the path of an oncoming vehicle during the day and dying several days after a collision of moderate severity. In contrast, a driver fatality for someone aged 30 to 45 involved an unbelted, impaired driver losing control of a vehicle at night and dying during an extremely severe, single-vehicle crash.

Kent’s study was named the best scientific paper for 2005 by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine.

• A prescription drug that helps chemotherapy patients could also help those debilitated by a different problem—cocaine addiction. U.Va. Health System researchers have found that ondansetron, in combination with behavioral therapy, may offer a new alternative for treating cocaine dependence. The study, led by Bankole Johnson, chair of U.Va.’s Department of Psychiatric Medicine, was published recently in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Cocaine causes a huge surge in the brain’s dopamine level, the brain’s pleasure molecule. Ondansetron, a serotonin antagonist drug, works by interfering with the dopamine, effectively blocking the "high" that cocaine gives. During a clinical trial involving 63 addicts, researchers tested the drug against a placebo and found that patients treated with the highest dose of ondansetron had more cocaine-free weeks that those who were given a placebo.

Cocaine users have a high relapse rate under the currently available behavioral and psychosocial interventions. The preliminary findings by Johnson and his colleagues come at a time when, despite almost two decades of scientific effort, no medication has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration that treats cocaine addiction.

• A new study of age and gender estimates by U.Va.’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service shows that Virginia’s population growth is surging at both ends: school-age and elderly groups account for more than 40 percent of the state’s total growth.

Localities with the largest percentage of residents aged 17 or younger were Stafford, Spotsylvania and Prince William counties. The top three localities with a population of 65 and older were all in eastern Virginia: Lancaster, Northumberland and Middlesex counties.

The study, which examined population figures from 2000 to 2005, also ranked each Virginia locality by its "dependency ratio," or its percentage of residents who are under 18 and over 65. The localities with the highest dependency ratios were Lancaster, Northumberland and Martinsville.

return to top >

The remarkable properties of aerogels

"It’s like holding a slab of San Francisco fog," says Pamela M. Norris, a U.Va. professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. She’s doing her best to describe a solid that’s actually 98 percent air. Called an aerogel, it consists in its various incarnations of either silica, zirconia or alumina, which makes up the remaining 2 percent. Dry, delicate and almost completely transparent, aerogels are the lightest solids ever produced.

Pamela Norris in U.Va.'s Aerogel Research Lab, which she established after becoming fascinated with this versatile material.

The substance was first developed in the 1930s by a California scientist who was interested in removing the liquid from gel while keeping the structure intact. The highly combustible production process made them dangerous to make at first, and it’s only recently that aerogels have been rediscovered for their useful capacities.

"They’re an amazing class of material possessing a lot of world records," says Norris. Aerogels have the lowest speed of sound and the lowest electric conductivity of any known material, making them excellent acoustic and electric insulators. They’re also the world’s best thermal insulator, and, as such, were used to line electronics in the recent Mars rover mission. "They’re the only material that would have worked," says Norris.

NASA has also been using aerogels in an ongoing mission to collect particles in space. The material forms a butterfly net that collects tiny fragments, such as those left by comets, which can then be studied and identified.

But stardust and space travel aren’t the only applications for this high-performing material. Norris, who directs U.Va.’s Aerogel Research Laboratory, the only facility of its kind in the country, is working to realize its full potential here on the ground.

When Norris came to U.Va in 1994, her first grant entailed a study of the way energy moves through different materials on a microscopic level. She needed aerogels for this research, but found their cost prohibitive. "So I made them myself," she says. In doing so, Norris became fascinated with the material and has since made aerogels one area of her expertise. She founded the research lab and got funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for a project in which aerogels could be used to detect biological warfare agents in the air. Morris was studying how aerogels could function as a sort of sponge embedded with air-specific receptors. When they detected hostile agents, the receptors would cause the sponge to change properties, indicating an emergency.

Contrary to what you might expect, though, funding for that project dried up after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "After 9/11, only people who could produce a product in six months to a year would get a contract," says Norris. "We weren’t close enough to product development, so funding for basic research stopped."

The aerogel lab, however, is busier than ever. Norris is now focused on other aspects of aerogel synthesis such as the sol-gel process, a production process that allows scientists to alter the material’s density, pore-size distribution and surface chemistry according to specific needs. Norris is working with U.Va. chemistry professor James P. Landers on lab chip technology, where sol-gels are used for purification of DNA from biological samples. She also has several undergraduates busy on a range of research projects, from the design of an ultra-insulating sleeping bag to fiber-reinforced aerogels that bounce.

For such a light material, aerogels hold a lot of potential. Still, you’d think that after more than 10 years of research, Norris would tire of concentrating on something that barely seems to exist. "No way," she says when asked about slowing down. "It’s the coolest substance ever." —Emma Rathbone

return to top >