Psychologists at Harvard have set up an online test that measures your associations between positive/negative words with words associated with four major religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism). The idea is that these associations reveal your implicit positive or negative biases.

implicit.harvard.edu

I was partly surprised by my results. I showed the greatest positive bias toward Judaism. No surprise there, since that is my own religion. That result suggested to me that the test has some validity. But I was expecting to demonstrate a neutral feeling to Christianity and Buddhism and perhaps a small negative bias toward Islam—even though I try not to be biased and I was hoping not to get this result. To my surprise, my results showed a slight positive bias toward Islam and a negative bias toward Buddhism and especially Christianity.

Perhaps I was not on guard during the test against revealing a bias against Christianity? Or perhaps when I think of Christianity I don’t think of all my kind and reasonable Christian friends and relatives, but rather about Christian fundamentalists and those who would try to “save” me?

Whatever the explanation, I found the test to be an interesting and thought-provoking experience.