Cultural biases and our unconscious leanings

For a very eye-opening experience of how strong our unconscious biases are, check out the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Extracted from the background information from the Harvard study:

The IAT was originally developed as a device for exploring the unconscious roots of thinking and feeling. The web site has been constructed for a different purpose -- to offer the IAT to interested individuals as a tool to gain greater awareness about their own unconscious preferences and beliefs.

Many years ago, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote: "Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."

These lines from Dostoevsky capture two concepts that the IAT helps to examine. First, we might not always be willing to share our private attitudes with others. Second, we may not be aware of some of our own attitudes. Your results on the IAT may include both components of control and awareness.