The Hidden Bias
Personal reaction to the results
Elizabeth has developed a prejudiced perception concerning the capability and needs of her students dependent on the social background they come from respectively. This indicates that stereotypes have been created regarding the needs of various learners such as those from well up backgrounds require more personal attention than those originating from poor backgrounds. This has resulted in discriminatory actions such as treating learners differently although both present the same problems (University of Virginia and University of Washington 2010).
This bias in prejudice could have been created in Elizabeth’s mind form an early age such that from her early days in school she realized that people from upper class families were give preferential treatment in relation to those from equally low or middle class families. Thus the problem had a longstanding in her life and it never developed when she started working. Consequently, this form of prejudice could have evolved over along period of time while the world around us perpetuates the feeling and actions accompanying the hidden bias. This is illustrated in different scenarios where the media portrays the social difference efficiently and other preferential treatment is observed in public utility places (University of Virginia, 2010).
The hidden bias which is outwardly exhibited by increased discriminatory actions is enhanced by an unfriendly attitude from one individual to another. This is very similar to Elizabeth’s case where she seems to feel at ease when helping Walt as the bias makes her friendlier to him than to Ricky. The effects of the hidden bias on learners are detrimental as most of them tend to develop a negative attitude toward learning and the teacher. The perception that no congratulatory remarks will be received when a correct answer is given or the fact that incorrect answers will not be corrected in a sufficient way reduces learner commitment in his/her own education. Hence poor grades are obtained at the expense of the prejudiced teacher (University of Virginia, 2010).
However, there is room for change after the individual such as Elizabeth realizes that there is a problem which needs to be altered so as to benefit the learners and community. In this case Elizabeth does not understand that what she harbors is a hidden prejudice thus adequate information should be provided to various participants before undertaking the test in order to identify the various scenes which they predict must have been biased (University of Virginia, 2010).
Thoughts on reflection of hidden bias
The results of the test may fail to bring out the hidden bias as the individual undergoing the test may feel alienated from the results. This is applicable for situations such as if the prejudiced behavior has been leant for quite a long period hence everybody is likely to be participating in it similarly to Elizabeth’s bias thus calling the practice a hidden bias is disastrous. Hence the results may be biased especially when the person undergoing the test has not received adequate counseling based on their past behaviors.
However, to some extent the test exhibits an accurate reflection of hidden bias as it portrays various developmental patterns of the problem and to some extent ways of discerning its occurrence (University of Virginia, 2010).
References
University of Virginia and University of Washington (2010), the Implicit Association Test. Retrieved on August 19, 2010 from: www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/index.html.
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