On the malleability of automatic attitudes: Combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals.

Abstract

Two experiments examined whether exposure to pictures of admired and disliked exemplars can reduce automatic preference for White over Black Americans and younger over older people. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to either admired Black and disliked White individuals, disliked Black and admired White individuals, or nonracial exemplars. Immediately after exemplar exposure and 24 hr later, they completed an Implicit Association Test that assessed automatic racial attitudes and 2 explicit attitude measures. Results revealed that exposure to admired Black and disliked White exemplars significantly weakened automatic pro-White attitudes for 24 hr beyond the treatment but did not affect explicit racial attitudes. Experiment 2 provided a replication using automatic age-related attitudes. Together, these studies provide a strategy that attempts to change the social context and, through it, to reduce automatic prejudice and preference.

Cites (9)

1. Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes
   Greenwald, Anthony G., Banaji, Mahzarin R. · 1995 · Psychological Review
2. Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components
   Devine, Patricia G. · 1989 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
3. Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states.
   Schwarz, Norbert, Clore, Gerald L. · 1983 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
4. A model of dual attitudes.
   Wilson, Timothy D., Lindsey, Samuel, Schooler, Tonya Y. · 2000 · Psychological Review
5. Performance on Indirect Measures of Race Evaluation Predicts Amygdala Activation
   Phelps, Elizabeth A., O'Connor, Kevin J., Cunningham, William A., Funayama, E. Sumie, Gatenby, J. Christopher, Gore, John C., Banaji, Mahzarin R. · 2000 · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
6. Implicit attitude measures: Consistency, stability, and convergent validity
   Cunningham, William A., Preacher, Kristopher J., Banaji, Mahzarin R. · 2001 · Psychological Science
7. Out of mind but back in sight: Stereotypes on the rebound.
   Macrae, C. Neil, Bodenhausen, Galen V., Milne, Alan B., Jetten, Jolanda · 1994 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
8. Cognitive processes in the revision of stereotypic beliefs.
   Weber, Reneé, Crocker, Jennifer · 1983 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
9. Prejudice with and without compunction
   Devine, Patricia G., Monteith, Margo J., Zuwerink, Julia R., Elliot, Andrew J. · 1991 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Show all 9 references

Cited by (62)

1. Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity.
   Greenwald, Anthony G., Poehlman, T. Andrew, Uhlmann, Eric Luis, Banaji, Mahzarin R. · 2009 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
2. The connectedness to nature scale: A measure of individuals’ feeling in community with nature
   Mayer, F.Stephan, Frantz, Cynthia McPherson · 2004 · Journal of Environmental Psychology
3. Untitled work
   2003 · 10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145225
4. A meta-analysis on the correlation between the implicit association test and explicit self-report measures
   Hofmann, Wilhelm, Gawronski, Bertram, Gschwendner, Tobias, Le, Huy, Schmitt, Manfred · 2005 · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
5. Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Review and Assessment of Research and Practice
   Paluck, Elizabeth Levy, Green, Donald P. · 2009 · Annual Review of Psychology

See all 1,102