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

The research examines an unobtrusive measure of racial attitudes based on the evaluations that are automatically activated from memory on the presentation of Black versus White faces. Study 1, which concerned the technique's validity, obtained different attitude estimates for Black and White participants and also revealed that the variability among White participants was predictive of other race-related judgments and behavior. Study 2 concerned the lack of correspondence between the unobtrusive estimates and Modern Racism Scale (MRS) scores. The reactivity of the MRS was demonstrated in Study 3. Study 4 observed an interaction between the unobtrusive estimates and an individual difference in motivation to control prejudiced reactions when predicting MRS scores. The theoretical implications of the findings for consideration of automatic and controlled components of racial prejudice are discussed, as is the status of the MRS.

[1]  R. Fazio.  How do attitudes guide behavior , 1986 .

[2]  R. Rosenthal,et al.  Skill in nonverbal communication : individual differences , 1979 .

[3]  Judith M. Tanur,et al.  Questions About Questions: Inquiries into the Cognitive Bases of Surveys , 1993 .

[4]  Harold Sigall,et al.  Current Stereotypes: A Little Fading, a Little Faking. , 1971 .

[5]  J. B. Mcconahay,et al.  The scar of race. , 1996 .

[6]  Janet K. Swim,et al.  Sexism and racism: Old-fashioned and modern prejudices. , 1995 .

[7]  Russell H. Fazio,et al.  New technologies for the direct and indirect assessment of attitudes. , 1992 .

[8]  J. B. Mcconahay,et al.  Modern racism, ambivalence, and the Modern Racism Scale. , 1986 .

[9]  Russell H. Fazio,et al.  An Individual Difference Measure of Motivation to Control Prejudiced Reactions , 1997 .

[10]  S. Gaertner,et al.  Racial stereotypes: associations and ascription of positive and negative characteristic , 1983 .

[11]  R. Rosenthal.  Meta-analytic procedures for social research , 1984 .

[12]  R. Fazio,et al.  Variability in the likelihood of automatic attitude activation: data reanalysis and commentary on Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, and Pratto (1992) , 1993, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  J. Dovidio,et al.  The aversive form of racism. , 1986 .

[14]  F. Crosby,et al.  Recent unobtrusive studies of Black and White discrimination and prejudice: A literature review. , 1980 .

[15]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. , 1977 .

[16]  Russell H. Fazio,et al.  Attitudes as object-evaluation associations: Determinants, consequences, and correlates of attitude accessibility. , 1995 .

[17]  R. Scruton.  The New Racism , 1987 .

[18]  R. Petty,et al.  Attitude strength : antecedents and consequences , 1995 .

[19]  R. Fazio,et al.  The role of attitudes in memory-based decision making. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  R. Fazio.  Multiple Processes by which Attitudes Guide Behavior: The Mode Model as an Integrative Framework , 1990 .

[21]  P. Tetlock,et al.  Symbolic Racism: Problems of Motive Attribution in Political Analysis , 1986 .

[22]  M. Banaji,et al.  Implicit stereotyping and prejudice. , 1994 .

[23]  P. Tetlock,et al.  Reflections on American Racism , 1986 .

[24]  M. Zanna,et al.  Need for structure in attitude formation and expression. , 1989 .

[25]  Russell H. Weigel,et al.  Conceptions of Racial Prejudice: Symbolic Racism Reconsidered , 1985 .

[26]  D. Gilbert,et al.  The trouble of thinking: Activation and application of stereotypic beliefs. , 1991 .

[27]  D. Hermans,et al.  The affective priming effect: Automatic activation of evaluative information in memory. , 1994 .

[28]  The generality of the automatic attitude activation effect. , 1992 .

[29]  Harold Sigall,et al.  The bogus pipeline: A new paradigm for measuring affect and attitude. , 1971 .

[30]  J. Jonides,et al.  On the Cost and Benefit of Cost and Benefit , 1984 .

[31]  M. Gurtman,et al.  Us and them: Social categorization and the process of intergroup bias. , 1990 .

[32]  P. Devine.  Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. , 1989 .

[33]  Patricia G. Devine,et al.  Automatic and controlled processes in prejudice: The role of stereotypes and personal beliefs. , 1989 .

[34]  A. Elliot,et al.  Prejudice with and without compunction , 1991 .

[35]  A. Kruglanski,et al.  The freezing and unfreezing of lay-inferences: Effects on impressional primacy, ethnic stereotyping, and numerical anchoring ☆ , 1983 .

[36]  J. Dovidio,et al.  Racial stereotypes: The contents of their cognitive representations☆ , 1986 .

[37]  M. Banaji,et al.  Implicit social cognition: attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. , 1995, Psychological review.

[38]  M. J. Monteith,et al.  Self-regulation of prejudiced responses: Implications for progress in prejudice-reduction efforts. , 1993 .

[39]  M. Gurtman,et al.  Evidence for the automaticity of ageism , 1990 .

[40]  N. Ambady,et al.  Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. , 1992 .

[41]  A G Greenwald,et al.  Implicit gender stereotyping in judgments of fame. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  David M. Sanbonmatsu,et al.  On the automatic activation of attitudes. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[43]  J. Dovidio,et al.  Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism , 1986 .