Most people tend to hold specific views about themselves, and believe that their internal characteristics are the same as those that they have on the outside. For example, I might choose to believe that I am not racist and I do not discriminate in my everyday actions, however this may not be the truth internally. Often times when we think that we hold certain opinions, our internal "gut" reactions are very different than what we believe on the surface.

This phenomenon which I recently learned about is known as an implicit bias. In other words it is not an explicit bias that you area aware of, but a bias that lives in your subconscious and may control your thoughts in ways you can't even imagine. Sounds terrifying? Impossible? Well, Harvard did some research and developed tests to measure implicit bias, and they are nothing short of terrifyingly amazing.

In an effort not to sour your test results, I won't say too much about the tests, but there are a wide range of topics which you can take a test in. To name a few examples there are tests like the "Gender-Science" bias test to see if you treat and think of genders as being equal in the same way. Another test is the "Race" test to measure your automatic preference towards whites and non-whites.

Many of our implicit biases come from sources like media which can inconspicuously work certain ideas into our heads without our notice. Even those who tend to think they are neutral tend to have a subtle preference implicitly. Don't be alarmed if your results say that you are wildly racist or sexist, thankfully we have a filter to stop us from acting on most outrageous implicit biases, and your results do not make you a bad person!

These tests are interesting to say the least, and your results may surprise you, I know that mine sure did! Take a few tests and think about how your results correlate with your image of yourself and try to be more aware about your unconscious biases running through your head!

The implicit association tests may be found https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.htmlhere!