More on Project Implicit

(Background on Project Implicit here.)

Okay, I did two more studies at Project Implicit. I got one that attempted to discern my preferences for Love versus Money. Being constantly broke but happily married, I figured that I might come out with a slight subconscious preference for Money, since we always want what we don’t have. But in fact, my data suggested a strong automatic preference for Love relative to Money. It wasn’t even a contest; I’m a Love girl.

The other studies that came up were Morning versus Night (yawn—I skipped it) and Carbs versus Proteins (another snoozefest—my ass is a testament to my strong automatic preference for carbs; I don’t need Harvard to tell me). The second one I took was Progress versus Tradition.

The results surprised me a little: My data suggested a slight automatic preference for Progress relative to Tradition. I would have thought it would be more than a slight preference, but the whole time I was doing it, I was thinking, “It depends on the tradition.” In some ways, my life is very traditional—I’m married, we have a small house in a smallish, suburban town, we have nondescript office jobs, etc.—and I appreciate all those things. In some ways, it’s not traditional—we don’t have children, we aren’t religious, we’re from different continents, the couple we most love to double-date with is gay, we’re raging blues in a red state, etc.—and I appreciate all those things, too.

What I don’t appreciate is archaic parochialism, and I think I do have a strong automatic preference for short-handing it as traditionalism, so maybe I need to nurture a strong preference for rethinking my associations.