I had a chance today to take one of the online Implicit Association Tests (IAT) of Project Implicit, an ongoing study by Harvard-affiliated academics trying to uncover the associations, often subconscious, that guide our perceptions. The test I took was one of gender, and it told me that I am biased toward associating careers with men, family life with women. I admit, I am a product of 1950s television, so the results weren't surprising.

It did cause me, however, to wonder what assumptions we make in considering our portfolio. See if any of these hit the mark –

• Big companies = bad companies. For us children of the '60s, this message was drilled into us during the protests of companies engaged in weapons research during the Vietnam War. Later, movies such as The China Syndrome and Alien 2 mined the same vein.
• Female CEO = Chummy, non-confrontational office atmosphere. The ghost of Mary Richards, Laverne and Shirley, or Monica, Rachael and Phoebe haunt many of us.
• Chinese profits = American losses. We faced this in the 1980s with Japan, and Korea. Perhaps this is a holdover from the depression, when so many people believed in the zero sum game; the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. Even though this has been disproven over and over, it seems to be part of the American psyche. It could also be expressed as Mexican immigrants = loss of American jobs, although I don't see any of my friends lining up to mow lawns.
• The majority is always right. You would think such an irrational corollary to the democratic model would find no traction, but there most be a reason for the dot-com bubble.

Take a few minutes, if you wish, to take one of the Project Implicit tests. See if it doesn't cause you to wonder about the implicit assumptions that color your judgment. And what do you think are some other assumptions people hold about the stock market that I didn't mention?