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Cited by 159Social and Intergroup PsychologyRacial and Ethnic Identity ResearchNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Toward a comprehensive understanding of executive cognitive function in implicit racial bias.

Open access
Ito, Tiffany A., Friedman, Naomi P., Bartholow, Bruce D., Correll, Joshua, Loersch, Chris, Altamirano, Lee J., Miyake, Akira·2015·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
DOI 10.1037/a0038557PMC PMC4354845
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Abstract

Although performance on laboratory-based implicit bias tasks often is interpreted strictly in terms of the strength of automatic associations, recent evidence suggests that such tasks are influenced by higher-order cognitive control processes, so-called executive functions (EFs). However, extant work in this area has been limited by failure to account for the unity and diversity of EFs, focus on only a single measure of bias and/or EF, and relatively small sample sizes. The current study sought to comprehensively model the relation between individual differences in EFs and the expression of racial bias in 3 commonly used laboratory measures. Participants (N = 485) completed a battery of EF tasks (Session 1) and 3 racial bias tasks (Session 2), along with numerous individual difference questionnaires. The main findings were as follows: (a) measures of implicit bias were only weakly intercorrelated; (b) EF and estimates of automatic processes both predicted implicit bias and also interacted, such that the relation between automatic processes and bias expression was reduced at higher levels of EF; (c) specific facets of EF were differentially associated with overall task performance and controlled processing estimates across different bias tasks; (d) EF did not moderate associations between implicit and explicit measures of bias; and (e) external, but not internal, motivation to control prejudice depended on EF to reduce bias expression. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of global and specific EF abilities in determining expression of implicit racial bias.

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  • When a higher-order common factor is used to model the correlations among response inhibition, working memory updating, and mental set shifting, that common factor almost perfectly predicts the inhibition factor, but there is significant variance in the updating and shifting factors that is not related to the common factor.

    “When a higher-order common factor is used to model the correlations among response inhibition, working memory updating, and mental set shifting (see Fig. 3b), that common factor almost perfectly predicts the inhibition factor [37, 38, 157, 158], but there is significant variance in the updating and shifting factors that is not related to the common factor.”

    From The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function (2022) · cites this paper as [38]

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  • When the correlated factors model is re-parameterized into a bifactor model, there are updating-specific and shifting-specific factors, but there is no evidence for a response inhibition-specific factor.

    “Similarly, when the correlated factors model is re-parameterized into a bifactor model (see Fig. 3c), there are updating-specific and shifting-specific factors, but there is no evidence for a response inhibition-specific factor [37, 38, 157].”

    From The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function (2022) · cites this paper as [38]

    The Results and Discussion, under Preliminary Analyses (page unavailable), report Common EF, Updating-specific, and Shifting-specific factors and no evidence for an Inhibition-specific factor. The Current Study section also explains why inhibition is represented by Common EF. Our copy does not describe this as a re-parameterization of a correlated factors model into a bifactor model. (LLM, conf=0.83)

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  • Psychometric latent variable studies show that unity and diversity of cognitive control is evident across samples and ages, although some studies suggest more unity (higher correlations between factors) in early childhood.

    “Since that initial study, this psychometric latent variable approach has been used in a large number of studies to show that unity and diversity of CC is evident across samples and ages (e.g., [34–41]), although there are some studies that suggest more unity (higher correlations between factors) in early childhood [35, 42–44].”

    From The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function (2022) · cites this paper as [38]

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Cohen J Cohen P 1984 Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences 2 Psychology Press
  2. Satorra A Bentler PM 2010 Ensuring positiveness of the scaled difference chi-square test statistic Psychometrika 75 243 248 20640194 PMC2905175

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Authors
Ito, T. A., Friedman, N. P., Bartholow, B. D., Correll, J., Loersch, C., Altamirano, L. J., & Miyake, A.
Affiliations
  • University of Colorado Boulder (US)
  • University of Missouri (US)
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2015-02
Volume
108
Issue
2
Pages
187-218
ISSN
  • 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1315
DOI
10.1037/a0038557
PMC
PMC4354845
OpenAlex
W2158144941
Cited by
159
References
137
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1
FWCI
49.76
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (BCS 0847872)
  • National Institutes of Health (MH063207)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
implicit racial bias, executive function, cognitive control, automatic associations, individual differences, explicit bias, controlled processing, extrinsic motivation
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Association, Dangerous Behavior, Female, Humans, Individuality, Inhibition, Psychological, Internal-External Control, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Models, Psychological, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Surveys and Questionnaires, Saccades, Set, Psychology, Black People, White People, Young Adult, Executive Function, Racism

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