Activity 2.5 Automaticity and Implicit Associations

I took the 2012 IAT, which asked about preferences for Barak O'Bama vs. Mitt Romney and preferences for either blacks or whites.

I was not surprised by the results of the IAT, but given my group's reactions I was surprised that I wasn't surprised. 
Your data suggest a slight implicit preference for Barack Obama compared to Mitt Romney.
Your data suggest little to no difference in implicit preference between Black People and White People.
I think these results are particularly good for me, as I would not have wanted to discover a hidden prejudice.  I would be sad to think that my subconcious preferences might influence my behavior toward people in my life in a negative way.

The question of what this has to do with both learning and associations is very complex and important for me with respect to this topic.  Interestingly, I didn't specifically choose this topic, I just took what the site said it would like me to take.  It turned out to be a very relevant survey.

I grew up in NE Ohio during the bussing era.  I changed schools several times and was bussed all over the place.  In my senior year in HS my school was closed three times as a result of race rioting.  My father was a bigot and up until my years in HS I was too.  At some point I began to form my own opinion and over time my life changed dramatically.  I now have four wonderful, biracial children and a wonderful african american husband.  So, I wonder now if the question of reflection is again the source of deviation from the expected or anticipated behavior that one may have expected in my case.  I certainly was taught to associate African Americans with crime, violence, theivery, and many other negative characteristics.  In terms of Jame's point of the power of associations, I had powerful associations that definitely shaped my attitudes and behavior for a good part of my youth.  Even when my concious thoughts and perceptions began to change, I would still be more frightened when passing a black man on the street then when passing a white man on the street.  So, how did those powerful associations shape my future behavior as a child, and when did they begin to lose their power over my future behavior as an adult? 

James says in his discussion of what native reactions are that "Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitativeness." and also "Emulation is the impulse to imitate what you see another doing, in order not to appear inferior; and it is hard to draw a sharp line betwen the manifestations of the two impulses, so inextricably do they mix their effects."  This would seem to offer a very strong reason for my childhood behavior.  James goes on to say "the proper pedagogic moment to work skill in, and to clench the useful habit, is when the native impulse is most acutely present."  and he refers to the ripening of our impulsive tendencies and the law of transitoriness.  So, is it a question of this particular training in my life coming after the perfect moment (at least from my father's perspective) had already come and gone?  Or is it a question of native tendencies, and the fact that there maybe was no native tendency to which this teaching could be attached?  Or is it the fact that in this case there really would be no "useful actions" to make automatic and habitual.  OR, does this all come back to the question of what it means to be educated?  James also says, at the end of chapter VIII when he discusses good and bad, "Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have builte itself up withing him as a possession that will never pass away."  Perhaps this is the effect of knowledge and differential reinforcement.  Perhaps there were stronger reinforcers attached to other associations and behaviors.