I was originally planning to write this as a reply in another thread, but I figured it would be worthy of its own thread.

Project implicit is social psychology research project that contains open tests to test for implicit association. An implicit assocation is, briefly explained, an attitude we holds towards stimuli that precedes conscious thought - amongst laymen often incorrectly referred to as "subconsious prejudice" or similar-sounding terms.

It is for example this effect that will lead people who are cognitively very opposed towards discrimination to still choose job applicants based on names closer to their own culture. Many will have heard of studies related to this that compared the success of african-american names vs anglo-american names on job applications.

Anyways... the tests. The test will simply give you a test to see how you rank different "groups" implicitly. You won't get a nice pre-generated personality dump at the end telling you your horoscope... but you will get a score that will be of interest to some.

Here is a test for your implicit associations towards mainstream religions: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1

Perhaps it is screwing up on my ipad, but it says the session has timed out, and when I click to see the various studies, none are listed as explicitly about religion.

Could be... it requires java and will open a pop-up window. It is best done on a computer anyway, as it will require a keyboard and some fast input.

You could try this link:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/

Then there are a few disclaimers and then a list of the tests. Religion is slightly below the middle.

But I like getting a horoscope. It's always nice to see how positive a summary of me a two-minute test provides...

Christianity first, then a big gap, then islam and immediately after it judaism and hinduism on the same line approximately located about the middle between "more positive" and "more negative". And I could feel it too, my response were noticeably faster thinking of "jesus" then "dharma". At one point when "mosque" came up I noticed myself thinking "ground zero mosque" (even though I criticized the criticism of this extensively). Kinda sad tbh.

I am presuming this shows some level of cultural familiarity. Usually I take a roll of being very critical of christianity, but ironically, in defense of Islam. This is not so say I think Islam is any less ridiculous than christianity, but when I am talking about the two I end up attacking the one and defending the other. (The reason, incidentally, is due to asymmetric audiences, in particular one that devoutly follows christianity but where islamophobia has negative consequences that ought to be combated, it isn't that I think the one is any more ridiculous than the other). That said, I am presuming the cultural familiarity with Christianity still makes the noticeable jump with regards to christianity.

One quirk is that I twice made a mistake when jews were being presented by mistakenly clicking "bad" for "abraham" since I immediately jumped to abraham being christian. Arguably this is a mistake on the test given how Abraham is central to three of the religions present. I suspect if you ignored these two error, Judaism would have been higher than islam (where I don't think I made an error, just slower timing).

What makes you think this is testing anything other than "how good are you at sorting games"?

Yes, the test is really nice because it makes you think and reflect about the associations.

Hinduism was the "middle of the pack" for me, I suspect it is because I don't really have much of a relationship towards it. I had Christianity and Islam halfway between middle and bottom end, which is somewhat as I suspected.

Very surprising to me was that I had Judaism between middle and halfway to the top, which was a really big surprise. I suspect the typical stereotypes of Jews might coincide with certain ideals I hold in high regard (well educated, intellectual etc).

I also did the same Abraham error that you did.

Initially a lot of concerns towards implicit assocation tests mirrored your concerns (albeit a bit more in depth). The short reply is that many years have passed and tests give results that are both statistically valid and replicable. There is evidence to suggest these tests are actually better than surveys at predicting prejudice.

The wiki on implicit association is fairly good and gives an overview of methodological weaknesses.

I guess I'll give my results. I had Hinduism slightly above average, Christianity and Islam slightly below average, and Judaism slightly below those two. I had the same problem with Abraham and I also clicked him on "good" for Christianity a few times.

I'm completely untrained in this area, but all of the criticism makes a lot of sense to me.

For instance, if someone had no familiarity at all with Hinduism and saw the words Karma, Krishna, etc. for the first time right before taking the test, obviously they'd do worse/be slower on categorizing those words.

Sure, there exists no type of tests in social psychology without weaknesses and one should always be aware of what they might be. However that the construct does have both validity and scientific value isn't questioned within the field - as long as you aware of what the weaknesses are.

Personally I'm fairly convinced this test gives a far better overview of our actual prejudices than a survey where social desirability comes into play. It is a sign of strength of this particular construct that it is actually to difficult to "fake" answers.

Interesting test. I wonder about the validity of my results based on how I viewed the test as a competition. However, I suppose it measures not just my correctness but the time required to answer as well. Which might be why it rated Christianity highest for me, even though I missed an answer there (why the hell does it relate Abraham as bad for Christianity?)

My results: Christianity on the more positive side, Islam and Judaism in the middle, and Hinduism on the more negative side.

Which is odd, because my honest answers to the preference questions afterwards was:
Christianity: extreme positive
Judaism: high positive
Hinduism: no preference
Islam: slight negative

So it seems that Hinduism and Islam were reversed according to my test results.

But, jeez, I hate quizzes where the words are displayed in one of two colors (although I understand the reason for doing that.)

Buddhism and Christianity on a par, Judaism slightly below that, Islam slightly below that.

So you implicitly rank Hinduism relatively high, but yet you call it Buddhism.

Hmm, I ended up doing a test on Racism, I'm getting that feeling I used to get at school when I realised that everyone else was doing something different from me. Off now to look for the religious test.

Glad to know that I'm not racist though.

Oops.

Islam a clear loser, no surprise there I suppose given the amount of negative media I'm exposed to, but Judaism ranked above Buddhism (which was on par with Christianity) which greatly surprises me for two reasons. One, if I had to choose a religion (although I'm with the school of thought that Buddhism isn't a religion) I'd choose Buddhism hands down so I would have expected that to rank top. Two, I thoroughly despise Christianity (probably since it's the religion I'm most exposed to and most see the effects of in my day to day life) and would have expected it to be bottom, even below Islam, certainly not on par with Buddhism..

I can't explain or understand why I would rank a religion that I consider guilty of starting 2000 years of misery and suffering above a 'religion' that promotes peace and tranquility above all things.

Not trying to start a debate about anything here, just analysing my result in the context of my own views and noting that it definitely didn't reflect how I think I think about these religions.

Are you sure it was Buddhism? I was until I went back and looked.

I'll just note that anyone who starts a "quarrel" or passed judgment based on these tests have missed the point behind them to a spectacular degree.

Psychology teaches us quite simply that "people form groups". In controlled experimental settings people have even held completely arbitrary ingroups ("shares color of t-shirt") to be friendler, more intelligent and more deserving of rewards than the outgroup.

That is what these tests are trying to unveil.. what we implicitly count as ingroups and what we count as outgroups.

I thought that the point of the tests was to reveal implicit associations. Hence my comment that my results surprised me given how I think I feel about the various religions. I actually expected the results to show an strong negative bias than I would probably admit to. They didn't.

Because I had to describe how I feel, to put the results in context, I was then a little concerned that it might spark a response and wanted to point out that I wasn't trying to do that.

Hard to take it that you have thought about this at all seriously if you think buddhism had anything to do with the test.

ain't nobody got no time for Hinduism

I had Christianity just above Judaism/Islam just above hinduism, all tightly grouped very closely in the middle. Does that mean all my preferences are explicit?

Eh? You're really confusing me. I thought the test was about implicit associations and was supposed to reveal them if they existed?

I expected mine to reveal a negativity toward Christianity and a more positive view on Buddhism but the results didn't reflect that. Also, I thought I had quite negative associations with Judaism but it actually scored as the religion I'm 'warmest' to.

Buddhism isn't one of the religions, you're confusing it with Hinduism