> The test-retest reliability (repeatability) of the Race IAT is only .42, which falls well below the psychometric standard of .80. Your score on the IAT can fluctuate significantly from one testing to the next. Hart Blanton, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, has noted the ease with which people can decrease their racial bias score “by simply exposing people to pictures of African-Americans enjoying a picnic.”
> The validity of IAT scores has also come under scrutiny. In 2013, Frederick Oswald and his research team published a meta-analysis of 46 studies.[1] They found that IAT scores are poor predictors of actual behavior and policy preferences. They also found that IAT scores predicted behaviors and policy preferences no better than scores on simple paper-and-pencil measures of prejudice.
> Perhaps the most interesting feature of the debate concerns how to interpret IAT scores. Some social psychologists believe the IAT measures prejudice, while others believe the IAT measures our knowledge of common stereotypes.
> They then took a version of the Race IAT with Noffians and Fasites standing in for Blacks and Whites, respectively. The students showed a consistent bias against Noffians, not because they perceived Noffians as bad but because they perceived them as bad off.
That's good, and here is some more including different ways to measure implicit bias that have emerged. The point stands that people aren't objective:
>White applicants get about 50 percent more call-backs than black applicants with the same resumes; college professors are 26 percent more likely to respond to a student’s email when it is signed by Brad rather than Lamar; and physicians recommend less pain medication for black patients than white patients with the same injury.
> Almost a third of naturalizing immigrants abandoned their first names by 1930 and acquired popular American names such as William, John or Charles. [...] Widespread name Americanization prompts the question of whether it had an impact on migrants’ economic success. Figure 1 provides a preliminary answer to this question. Name Americanization into the most popular names - e.g. the top quartile - was associated with an occupation-based earnings increase of above 10%. These gains were larger than those experienced by migrants Americanizing into less popular names - e.g. the first quartile - and even more so than those experienced by migrants who kept their original name or changed to a more distinctive name.
As to speculation on why that is, could be as simple as the fact that the brain capacity is rather limited. Handling unfamiliar letter/phoneme sequences requires more energy. As entropic creatures, we simply take the lowest energy path whenever possible.
Inline excerpts:
> The test-retest reliability (repeatability) of the Race IAT is only .42, which falls well below the psychometric standard of .80. Your score on the IAT can fluctuate significantly from one testing to the next. Hart Blanton, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, has noted the ease with which people can decrease their racial bias score “by simply exposing people to pictures of African-Americans enjoying a picnic.”
> The validity of IAT scores has also come under scrutiny. In 2013, Frederick Oswald and his research team published a meta-analysis of 46 studies.[1] They found that IAT scores are poor predictors of actual behavior and policy preferences. They also found that IAT scores predicted behaviors and policy preferences no better than scores on simple paper-and-pencil measures of prejudice.
> Perhaps the most interesting feature of the debate concerns how to interpret IAT scores. Some social psychologists believe the IAT measures prejudice, while others believe the IAT measures our knowledge of common stereotypes.
> They then took a version of the Race IAT with Noffians and Fasites standing in for Blacks and Whites, respectively. The students showed a consistent bias against Noffians, not because they perceived Noffians as bad but because they perceived them as bad off.