Variability in automatic activation as an unobtrusive measure of racial attitudes: A bona fide pipeline?

“Although it is a good question how much of everyday life is actually under mindful control (Bargh, 1999), there appears to be some consensus that people can sometimes restrain their automatic tendencies, given ample motivation and opportunity (Fazio, 1990; Fazio et al., 1995; Devine & Monteith, 1999; Greenwald & Banaj…”

“Social psychologists have been investigating“attitude objects” for decades (Fazio et al., 1986, 1995; Bargh et al., 1992; Greenwald et al., 1998; Giner-Sorolla et al., 1999).”

“A number of other single-target implicit attitude measures have been developed recently (De Houwer, 2003; Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Karpinski & Steinman, in press; Nosek & Banaji, 2001; Schnabel et al., 2005).”

“Third, the widely used modern racism scale appears to be correlated with social desirability (Dunton and Fazio 1997; Fazio et al. 1995), making its use less than comfortable.”

“However, because we are interested in studying the relationship between other-race perceptual and implicit social biases, we modeled ALPS more on the BFP [4] which probes implicit biases using perceptual primes (e.g., face pictures) as opposed to semantic constructs (e.g., the categories ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’).”

“However, differences in the degree of stereotype activation can also be caused by differences in the strength of the association between a category and a stereotype (see Fazio, Dunton, Jackson, & Williams, 1995; & Brown, 1997; for a comparable idea in the realm of implicit racial attitudes).”

“Instead, psychologists have documented the pervasive occurrence of discrimination without conscious awareness by people who strive to live in a nondiscriminatory fashion in accordance with unprejudiced identities that they sincerely endorse (e.g., Devine, 1989; Dovidio, 1997; Fazio et al., 1995).”

“…activity devoted to understanding the extent to which racial attitudes are easily activated or controlled (see Devine, 1989; Dovidio et al., 1997; Fazio, Jackson, RACIAL PREJUDICE Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Kawakami, Dion, & Dovidio, 1998; LePore & Brown, 1997; Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 1997).”

“Ingroups are implicitly positive and outgroups implicitly negative (e.g., Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Perdue, Dovidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990).”

“Blanton & Jaccard (2008) conclude that there is a trend “for some [implicit] measures to predict subtle forms of bias (e.g., eye contact, facial expressions) in laboratory settings” (see also Fazio et al. 1995, Dovidio et al. 2002).”

“The latency data from the priming measure were used to calculate an estimate of automatically activated racial attitudes for each participant (see Fazio et al., 1995, for details regarding the calculation of the attitude scores).”

“Although subsequent research has not provided uniform support for Devine’s (1989) model (e.g., see Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Fein & Spencer, 1997; Lepore & Brown, 1997), most models have maintained at least a tacit emphasis on inhibitory processes.”

“Previous investigations have generally found weak relationships between implicit and explicit measures of prejudice (e.g. Dasgupta et al., 2000; Fazio et al., 1995; Greenwald et al., 1998).”

“Dovidio, Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson, & Howard, 1997; Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995 ).”

“This pattern suggests that individuals with more negative racial attitudes may have stronger automatic biases, but that only those low in motivation to avoid prejudice are willing to report their attitudes on an explicit scale (see Fazio et al., 1995, for a similar pattern).”

“Activating these stereotypes can mold our impressions of others (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990), distort our knowledge and memory of them (Bodenhausen, 1988), lead to unintended negative affect ( Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995 ), and produce aggressive behavior (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996).”

“In sum, it is clear that evaluations and cognitions associated with a social category can quickly become activated following exposure to category exemplars (Cunningham, Preacher, & Banaji, 2001; Fazio et al., 1995; Greenwald et al., 1998; Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 1997, 2001).”

“The development of implicit measures of prejudice has allowed researchers to demonstrate the influence of racial bias on information processing by examining split second responses to stimuli (e.g., Devine, 1989; Dovidio, Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson, & Howard, 1997; Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Greenwald, M…”

“…on the relation between “implicit” and “explicit” prejudice, the present research expands on previous studies showing similar effects for motivation to control prejudiced reactions (e.g., Dunton & Fazio, 1997; Fazio et al., 1995; Hofmann, Gschwendner, & Schmitt, 2005; Payne et al., 2005).”

“Other implicit measures , such as priming procedures (e.g., Fazio et al., 1995; Gaertner & McLaughlin, 1983; Payne, 2001; Perdue, Dovidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990; Wittenbrink et al., 1997) and the go/no–go association test (Nosek & Banaji, 2001) offer that advantage.”

“Moreover, our replication of the weak relationship between the IAT and explicit measures of racial prejudice is consistent with similar dissociations obtained with a heterogeneous group of indirect and explicit prejudice measures (Banaji & Hardin, 1996; Dovidio et al., 1997; Fazio et al., 1995; von Hippel et al., 1997…”

“As Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, and Williams ( 1995 ) explained: “If, as Devine suggested, the shared cultural stereotype is activated in the presence of a minority group, one would expect little meaningful variation in the pattern of facilitation across participants.”

“…& Steinman, 2006), or Sorting Paired Features Tasks (Bar-Anan et al., 2009) rather than the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; De Houwer, 2003) and priming tasks (Fazio et al., 1986; Fazio et al., 1995) based on the measures’ respective internal consistencies and test-retest reliabilities.”

“Many such measures require participants to respond as quickly as possible, thereby limiting introspection (e.g., Fazio et al., 1995; Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2006).”

“The response to their call for new measures has been overwhelming, and numerous indirect techniques have been developed to measure individual differences in attitudes (De Houwer & Eelen, 1998; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Nosek & Banaji, 2001), self-esteem (Greenwald & Farnham, 2000; Hetts, Sakuma, & Pelham, 1…”

“These avoidant behaviours lead to difficult, awkward, and unfulfilling interaction experiences for individuals' partners (Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995 ; Hebl, Foster, Mannix, & Dovidio, 2002 ; Ickes, 1984 ; Word et al, 1974 ).”

“, 2004) and because both can be examined using conventional priming procedures (Fazio et al., 1995; Wittenbrink et al., 1997; Kawakami et al., 1998).”

“Most studies that have investigated stereotype activation have utilized factual judgments or beliefs (e.g., response time and memory) as outcome measures (Bargh, 1999; Fazio et al., 1995; Fiske & Taylor, 1991).”

“Gupta et al. (1983) write about employers’ treatment of women as follows: “While opinions (evaluations) may be positive, actions (promotions) still follow tradition” (p.”

“In fact, prejudice research suggests that respondents’ motives to be nonprejudiced can moderate implicit–explicit attitude links (e.g., Dunton & Fazio, 1997; Fazio et al., 1995).”

“Interacting with—or even viewing faces of—Black individuals has been found to activate stereotypical associations regarding criminality, hostility, and other negative characteristics, and this process often occurs automatically—outside a perceiver’s conscious awareness—and absent explicitly prejudicial attitudes (e.g.…”

“As for ethnicity, whites show generally more positive automatic attitudes towards whites than towards blacks (e.g., Fazio et al., 1995; Dovidio et al., 1997; Greenwald et al., 1998; Nosek and Banaji, 2001).”

“A second associative methodology pervasively deployed in the measurement of implicit attitudes involves priming paradigms that target either the semantic or affective dimensions of evaluation (Fazio et al., 1995; Wittenbrink, 2007).”

“It has been shown that explicit motivation to control prejudice moderates the relation between implicit prejudice and explicit prejudice (Fazio et al., 1995), that those high in IMS and low in EMS exhibit lower levels of implicit bias (e.g., Amodio et al., 2003; Devine et al., 2002), that those…”

“, evaluative differences associated with race), a finding inconsistent with some other reports (e.g., Dovidio et al., 1986; Fazio et al., 1995).”

“Racial stereotypes are simply too deeply ingrained (Devine 1989; Fazio et al. 1995) and too stable (Fiske 1998; Rothbart and John 1993) to be swayed by a single black politician who wins public office.”

“Previous research (Dovidio et al., 1997; Fazio et al., 1995) has already shown that implicit attitude measures are able to predict nonverbal behavior.”

“…of social identity threat (Hogg & Turner, 1987; Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2000; Turner, 1987), it can temper overtly expressed reactions to the threat (Fazio et al., 1995; Reicher & Levine, 1994), making the threat least likely to be visible from self-reports in circumstances under which it is most…”

“Prejudicial attitudes and stereotypical associations undoubtedly are systemic forces that are often activated and applied automatically, without the conscious awareness of the perpetrator (Bargh et al., 1992, 1996; Devine, 1989; Dovidio, Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson, & Howard, 1997; Fazio et al., 1995; Fazio et al., 198…”

“It should also be noted that Fazio et al. (1995) found that some individuals did not show automatic activation of prejudiced responses.”

“…which perceivers are explicitly aware of the biasing influence of their associations, such as can be assumed for the explicit endorsement of prejudiced beliefs about the target group in general (e.g. Banse & Gawronski, 2003; Banse, Seise, & Zerbes, 2001; Dunton & Fazio, 1997; Fazio et al., 1995).”

“In most tasks, participants are unaware that their prejudice level is being measured (Fazio et al., 1995; Wittenbrink et al., 1997), but this is not always the case (Greenwald et al., 1998; Locke et al., 1994).”

“…and Greenwald 1994; Bargh 1996; Bargh and Chen 1997; Bargh, Chen, and Burrows 1996; Correll et al. 2002; Devine 1989; Dovidio, Evans, and Tyler 1986; Dovidio et al. 1997; Fazio et al. 1995; Fiske et al. 1999; Krueger 1996; Macrae, Milne, and Bodenhausen 1994; Olson and Fazio 2004; Payne 2001.”

“Participants then completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) (Beck et al. 1961) and the Eysenck Neuroticism Scale (Eysenck and Eysenck 1964).”

“Implicit attitude measures were first developed at least in part to tap what researchers thought of as the true attitude that participants were reluctant to report or of which they were unaware (e.g., Fazio et al., 1995).”