Really finding your responses interesting and informative. If I had a way to do so, would call attention to your reactions to the researchers, but doubt it would be "news" to them.

As most of you know, I am a social worker. My undergraduate training was obtained back in the dark ages when social work was a specialty within sociology, and I have been involved, on a minor scale, with social science research off and on beginning when I went back to graduate school 20 years ago. I may have a bit of a different understanding and a bit more respect for the value of social science research, and also perhaps a bit more understanding of what is being measured, the limitations of the research design, and also some ability to assess the validity of social science research and research design.

Call the study and the methodology horse shit if you will, or endorse Jack's judgement and labeling of it as such, as some others of you have done. Decide it is nothing but mumbojumbo. That is a perfectly valid thing to do if that is your inclination.

What wants or needs to remain unconscious for an individual will remain unconscious, unacknowledged and/or rejected by an individual as long as that individual "needs" to keep the psychological defenses in place that allow the denial of that material. That being said, this study offers feedback to those who are interested or able to contemplate how one's unconscious may influence one's perceptions of both one's self and the world, but that is not the function or utility of these "tests." What is being studied - what is useful and what is being measured in this study is aggregate data about unconscious social influences and unconscious social learning within a society. The "tests" are perhaps better understood as "exercises." For that matter, most psychological tests are best understood as exercises that can yield useful information. In addition, the "tests" in this longitudinal and multifacited sociological/social psychological study are not equivalent at all to the individual "testing" commonly associated with individual psychological evaluation and testing such as IQ tests, the MMPI, the Myers-Briggs,etc. Mental health professionals in general, and the psychologists who administer and interpret assorted batteries of tests when completing psychological and psychoeducational evaluations on specific individuals are well aware that psychological testing does not "pidgeon hole" an individual or define who that that person is. These well studied and validated tests do provide valuable information, but their limitations are well known and those limitations are always commented upon in the written individual report.

But that is a bit of a digression, because the exercises utilized in this study fall into a different category and thinking of them, as Spaw or Bill have expressed for example, in terms of the batteries of tests used for individual psychological assessments, is comparing apples and oranges. This study is not about measuring the individual's interest, willingness or capacity to allow the unconscious to become conscious, although it offers the individual some feedback to ponder and make of it what one will. It is about researching the collective effects of unconscious attitudes (the collective effect of social learning in a society, so to speak.)

Leenia provided an excellent example for what these tests do not measure and do not assert they measure. Conscious bias.

Any social scientist or responsible professional who relies on social research will readily acknowledge the limitations inherent in social science research. In my view, that doesn't mean such research is not useful and valuable, whether or not I am prepared to simply be open to the possibility that I may not live my life entirely consciously.

The demonstration in the first part of the first video lecture is non-threatening and illustrates very well how the unconsious operates to "fool" us. Or you could dismiss that demonstration as horse shit. It also illustrates the how and why of the exercises and demonstrates, generally speaking, what the exercises measure. Or you can dismiss that as horse shit. Or, you could simply think, "I don't get it." Or, "I don't get it and I have other things more interesting to me to do rather than make sense of this." Or, you could say "I don't get it, so it must be horse shit." Or you could say, "I get it but I don't agree so it must be horse shit."

Or you can say that social science research is horse shit and has no value.

Or you can say that social science research, or any research for that matter that does not support what I have already decided to believe is horse shit.

Or you could say, I know institutional racism and unconscious prejudices exist, and they are all on the part of other people, not me.

Or you could say, I know instituional racism exists simply because I know it and this is what happened to my best friend Samuel and I don't need no stinkin' research studies to document and understand it better. No wonder my taxes are so high, paying for crap like that.

Fact is, this is one of the better and more valid studies to provide research evidence and explanation for institutional and unconscious prejudices in our society. Social science research and documentation has proven instrumental in changing laws, policies and successfully supporting legal arguments challenging social injustices and prejudices on small and large scales within our society.

But to many of you, it will still just be horse shit.