1) The Stroop Task: Automatic Processing & Bias
 

Go to: https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready.html

 

As soon as the words appear on your screen, read the list as fast as you can. When you have finished, click on the "Finish" button. The time it took you to read all of the words will be shown. If you want to try the same set of words, click on the "reload" button of your browser. If you want to continue with the experiment, click on "Continue Experiment."

In the Stroop task, people simply look at color words, such as blue, red, or green. The interesting thing is that the task is to name the color of the ink the words are printed in, while fully ignoring the actual word meaning. It turns out that this quite difficult, and you can find out exactly how difficult this is.

 

 

Debrief:

It is very easy to name the color of the word "black" when it is printed in black (most text is written in black ink). It is also very easy to name the color of the word "red" printed in red ink color. It is difficult, though, when the word and the ink color are different! This extent of this difficulty is what we call the Stroop effect.

 

In Stroop’s words, there is "interference" between the color of the ink and the word meaning. This interference occurs no matter how hard you try, which means that it is uncontrollable with the best conscious effort. It implies that at least part of our information processing occurs automatically. It happens, whether you want it or not! Do you think this is true? If you think it is not true, how can you test this? Could you argue that if you train yourself long enough, you would no longer show the Stroop effect?

 

Link this to who we expect to find in leadership roles and how it can be more challenging to identify leadership skills in those individuals who don’t fit our implicit ideas about what a leader looks like (i.e., white, male).