I am currently enrolled in a psychology class at the college I attend. One of the requirements for the class is that we participate in six hours of psychological experiments that graduate students are doing. Most are fairly harmless, what facial features in dogs are people attracted to, how do you interact with others, things like that. I decided to take an online survey about how I interacted with black people. Now I am white, and I am not a racist, but I feel that the way the questions were asked that it will be portrayed that way.
One of the series of questions dealt with how often I talked to blacks in chat rooms. On every question I had to put never, not because I am against talking to blacks, but because I don't use chat rooms. There was also a section asking how likely you would be to turn to a black person for support or advice. I would turn to my really good friends that I have known for a long time and really trust for advice and support. I don't have any really close black friends. This isn't to say I don't have any black friends, and to be truthful when I was younger my best friend was black, but he moved away, and we lost contact.
I just feel that the questions were poorly worded to get the type of response that the person conducting the experiment wanted. I also think that there should have been a place to talk about my answers so that they can be taken in the correct context. I don't really think that people are going to think that I am a racist from this online survey,as it is confidential so no one will see my name, but it still bugs me. Has anyone else had an experience like this? Where you know that you are not racist, but felt like you were being portrayed as one.
