Beyond Persons and Situations: An Interactionist Approach to Understanding Implicit Bias

Individual Differences in Implicit Bias Can Be Measured Reliably by Administering the Same Implicit Association Test Multiple Times

The use of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a measure of individual differences is stymied by insufficient test-retest reliability for assessing trait-level constructs. We assess the degree to which the IAT measures individual differences and test a method to improve its validity as a "trait" measure: aggregating across IATs. Across three studies, participants (total n = 960) completed multiple IATs in the same session or across multiple sessions. Using latent-variable models, we found that half of the variance in IAT scores reflects individual differences. Aggregating across multiple IATs approximately doubled the variance explained with explicit measures compared with a single IAT D-score. These findings show that IAT scores contain considerable noise and that a single IAT is inadequate to estimate trait bias. However, aggregation across multiple administrations can correct this and better estimate individual differences in implicit attitudes.

Differences in Implicit Attitudes in West and East Germans as Measured by the Go/NoGo Association Task and Event-related EEG Potentials

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Implicit social cognition refers to attitudes and stereotypes that may reside outside conscious awareness and control but that still affect human behavior. In particular, the implicit favoritism of an ingroup, to which an individual belongs, as opposed to an outgroup, to which the individual does not belong, characterized as ingroup bias, is of interest and is investigated here.

METHOD

We used a Go/NoGo association task (GNAT) and behavioral and electroencephalographic (event-related EEG potential [ERP] analysis) measures to investigate the implicit bias toward cities in East Germany, West Germany, and Europe, in 16 individuals each from West and East Germany (mixed gender, M age = 24). The GNAT assesses an individual's Go and NoGo responses for a given association between a target category and either pole (positive or negative) of an evaluative dimension.

RESULTS

Behavioral measures revealed slightly faster reaction times to the combination of European city names and negative, as compared with positive, evaluative words in both groups. ERP analysis showed an increased negativity at 400-800 ms poststimulus in the incongruent conditions of East German city/positive word pairings (in West Germans) and West German city/positive word pairings (in East Germans).

CONCLUSION

An implicitly moderately negative evaluation of Europe by both groups was exhibited based on the behavioral data, and an increased level of conflict arising from the "incongruent" pairings (ie, as manifestation of an implicitly negative attitude toward East Germany in West Germans, and toward West Germany in East Germans) was exhibited based on the electrophysiological data.

Explicit stigma and implicit biases toward autism in South Korea versus the United States

This cross-cultural study examined Koreans’ and Americans’ explicit stigma and implicit biases toward autism to examine potential mechanisms underlying recent evidence for heightened explicit autism stigma in South Korea relative to the United States. This evidence is somewhat at odds with other evidence that individuals living in collectivistic cultures such as South Korea may be more prone to present themselves favorably than those living in relatively individualistic cultures such as the United States. A total 224 American and 536 Korean non-autistic adult participants completed an online survey. Implicit biases were measured using the implicit association test. Koreans reported greater explicit stigma and exhibited more implicit biases toward autism than Americans. Explicit stigma was not correlated with implicit biases in either country. Less autism knowledge and pleasant contact with autistic people predicted greater explicit stigma among both Koreans and Americans. Less frequent contact and heightened assimilation ideology toward ethnic minorities predicted greater stigma only among Koreans. The variance in implicit biases explained by predictors was small, emphasizing the need for follow-up research investigating predictors of implicit biases. Informing Koreans about the shortcomings of assimilationist approaches and fostering an appreciation of the plurality of cultures may reduce stigma toward autistic individuals in South Korea.

Lay abstract

How people report their feelings about autism may be different from how they actually think about autism because some people may not want to reveal their true feelings. People who value the group’s goal tend to present themselves as more socially acceptable than people who value one person’s interests. We studied how people in South Korea and the United States report their feelings about autism and think about autism. Koreans tend to value the group’s goals. Americans tend to prefer one person’s goals. Koreans reported that they wanted more space from autistic people than Americans did. Koreans were more likely to think about autism with negative words (and think more negatively about autism). How Koreans and Americans report their feelings about autism was not related to their thoughts about autism. People who knew about autism and liked meeting with autistic people wanted to get closer to autistic people in South Korea and the US, Koreans who had met autistic people and thought that people who newly came to Korea from abroad should be more like Koreans did not want to get very close to autistic people. This could be because very few foreign people live in South Korea compared to the United States. Teaching Koreans that all cultures have values and should be appreciated will help them like autistic people more.

How can psychotherapists improve their practice with service users from minoritised ethnicities? An application of the Declarative-Procedural-Reflective (DPR) model of clinical skill development

Many white psychotherapists may lack the skills required to work effectively with service users from minoritised ethnicities. This article proposes that the nature of this skills deficit can be understood through applying the Declarative-Procedural-Reflective (DPR) model of therapist skill development. The DPR model has been used in a range of psychotherapeutic contexts, and it provides a systematic account of how therapists from all modalities develop and can improve their skills. Adapting this model to white therapists’ skills in working with service users from minoritised ethnicities allows the identification of specific areas of skills deficit, and therefore clear recommendations as to how to address those deficits. The application of the DPR model to this context suggests that there are clear areas of skills deficit in terms of knowledge base, the practical skills of carrying out therapy, and the ability of therapists to reflect on their work with service users from minoritised ethnicities. I conclude by making a number of suggestions as to how those deficits could be addressed, both by individual therapists and at a systemic level.

Key learning aims

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Myths and Misconceptions About University Student Volunteering: Development and Perpetuation

This paper examines myths and misconceptions about university student volunteering. Our study explored the experiences of students, host organisations and universities participating in volunteering in Australia, identify good practice, and discover barriers to success. A qualitative approach involved 60 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders. Students were often seen as being energetic, having flexible time and having skills associated with their studies. Some organisations, however, viewed students as unreliable, hard to manage and requiring specific programs. Some hosts were viewed as not valuing student volunteers, or not having the capacity to supervise. These perceptions were found to be nuanced. Erroneous myths were seen to develop from a single event, later confirmed by a 'related' event; in scenarios with multiple players, motivations, and complexities. The potential for misconceptions to undermine the true value of student volunteering for all stakeholders is ameliorated when there is common understanding, clear expectation setting, and ongoing dialogue.

If you want to develop an effective autism training, ask autistic students to help you

LAY ABSTRACT

Autistic university students are often left out because people do not understand autism. We wanted to help people understand autism. Most autism trainings are not made by autistic people. Autistic people know what it is like to be autistic. So autistic people may be the best teachers when it comes to teaching about autism. Autistic students and non-autistic professors made an autism training. The students made videos for the training. They also helped make questions to see what people learned from the trainings. Professors who are not autistic made a training on their own. Students in New York City tried out the trainings. After they answered questions, they did either the training the autistic students helped make or the training made by only professors. Then, they answered questions again. We learned from the students how to make our trainings better. Then, students from two universities in the United States and one university in Lebanon did our trainings and questions. Both trainings made hidden feelings about autism better. The training autistic students helped make taught students more than the training professors made on their own. The autistic-led training also helped students accept autism more. These studies show that autistic students can make autism research and trainings better. At the end of this article, autistic students share their ideas for how to make autism trainings even better in the future.

Implicit bias reflects systemic racism

Implicit bias refers to automatically evoked mental associations about social groups. The idea has been influential across the social sciences as a way to explain persistent racial disparities amid changing self-report attitudes. Most research has treated implicit bias as an individual attitude. However, evidence suggests that it is neither a stable individual difference nor a strong correlate of individual behavior. Moreover, the individual-focused approach can lead researchers to neglect systemic racism as a cause of persistent disparities. We argue that implicit bias can be considered a cognitive reflection of systemic racism in the environment. In this view, implicit bias is an ongoing set of associations based on inequalities and stereotypes in the environment. As such, implicit bias changes when contexts change.

The Gender Violence - Implicit Association Test to measure attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women

Attitudes play a central role in intimate partner violence against women and are related to its origin, to the responses of women who suffer violence, and to the settings where it occurs. In fact, these attitudes are recognized as one of the risk factors linked to violent perpetration and to public, professional, and victim responses to this type of violence. However, even though available research generally shows a broad rejection of this violence, it remains a serious social and health problem that has reached epidemic proportions. This suggests that the information available about these attitudes (obtained through explicit and direct measures, i.e., self-reports) may be distorted or influenced by factors such as social desirability. In this context, the overall objective of our research project is to provide multi-method measures (explicit and implicit) of attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women, and the main goal of this paper is to propose an instrument for the implicit measurement of these attitudes. In this regard, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most common procedure used, providing a superior predictive validity compared to explicit measures for socially sensitive topics. We will present an exploratory study that describes its adaptation for our purposes, and the development of the Gender Violence - Implicit Association Test (GV-IAT) to use among Spanish-speaking populations, and discuss the strengths and limitations of this proposal.

Twenty-Five Years of Research Using Implicit Measures

The year 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of two seminal publications that have set the foundation for an exponentially growing body of research using implicit measures: Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, and Williams's (1995) work using evaluative priming to measure racial attitudes, and Greenwald and Banaji's (1995) review of implicit social cognition research that served as the basis for the development of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The current article provides an overview of (1) two conceptual roots that continue to shape interpretations of implicit measures; (2) conflicting interpretations of the term implicit; (3) different kinds of dissociations between implicit and explicit measures; (4) theoretical developments inspired by these dissociations; and (5) research that used implicit measures to address domain-specific and applied questions. We conclude with a discussion of challenges and open questions that remain to be addressed, offering guidance for the next generation of research using implicit measures.

Comparing Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Intimate Partner Violence Against Women

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is an epidemic social and public health problem. Research has consistently found evidence for a complex etiology of IPVAW resulting from the interaction of many factors, among which gender-related norms and attitudes are among the main drivers of this violence. Public attitudes toward IPVAW are especially important because attitudes rejecting, condoning, or fostering such behavior are social factors that contribute to a climate of tolerance or refusal that can shape the social environment in which such violence takes place. Given the importance of these attitudes, the availability of reliable, valid, and concise measures is critical for both research and intervention purposes. The evidence shows a probable bias of direct or explicit assessment measures of IPVAW attitudes, and it has been suggested that they should be complemented by indirect or implicit measures. In this context, the main aim of this paper was to examine how implicit and explicit attitudes toward IPVAW differ among a Spanish population. An opportunity sample of 693 students took part in this study. Two direct or explicit measures (the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and Violence, IPDMV, and the Inventory of Beliefs about Intimate Partner Violence, IBIPV) and one indirect or implicit measure [the Gender Violence Implicit Association Test (GV-IAT), a personalized form of the Implicit Association Test (IAT)] were applied. The results obtained show that the psychometric characteristics of the implicit measure used (GV-IAT) are acceptable. Additionally, we obtained significant differences by gender, IPVAW knowledge, IPVAW involvement, and political opinion when we measured IPVAW attitudes by implicit measures. However, when we measured these attitudes by explicit measures, we only obtained significant differences by gender and political opinion. Finally, the results highlight the important differences between the levels of strong IPVAW rejection measured with explicit and implicit measures, confirming the traditional discrepancy between explicit and implicit measures of attitudes. In summary, the results obtained provide additional support for the idea that GV-IAT constitutes a promising assessment tool to complement explicit measures for attitudes toward IPVAW.

Can the Implicit Association Test Serve as a Valid Measure of Automatic Cognition? A Response to Schimmack (2021)

Much of human thought, feeling, and behavior unfolds automatically. Indirect measures of cognition capture such processes by observing responding under corresponding conditions (e.g., lack of intention or control). The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is one such measure. The IAT indexes the strength of association between categories such as “planes” and “trains” and attributes such as “fast” and “slow” by comparing response latencies across two sorting tasks (planes–fast/trains–slow vs. trains–fast/planes–slow). Relying on a reanalysis of multitrait–multimethod (MTMM) studies, Schimmack (this issue, p. 396) argues that the IAT and direct measures of cognition, for example, Likert scales, can serve as indicators of the same latent construct, thereby purportedly undermining the validity of the IAT as a measure of individual differences in automatic cognition. Here we note the compatibility of Schimmack’s empirical findings with a range of existing theoretical perspectives and the importance of considering evidence beyond MTMM approaches to establishing construct validity. Depending on the nature of the study, different standards of validity may apply to each use of the IAT; however, the evidence presented by Schimmack is easily reconcilable with the potential of the IAT to serve as a valid measure of automatic processes in human cognition, including in individual-difference contexts.

The Implicit Association Test: A Method in Search of a Construct

In 1998, Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz proposed that the Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures individual differences in implicit social cognition. This claim requires evidence of construct validity. I review the evidence and show that there is insufficient evidence for this claim. Most important, I show that few studies were able to test discriminant validity of the IAT as a measure of implicit constructs. I examine discriminant validity in several multimethod studies and find little or no evidence of discriminant validity. I also show that validity of the IAT as a measure of attitudes varies across constructs. Validity of the self-esteem IAT is low, but estimates vary across studies. About 20% of the variance in the race IAT reflects racial preferences. The highest validity is obtained for measuring political orientation with the IAT (64%). Most of this valid variance stems from a distinction between individuals with opposing attitudes, whereas reaction times contribute less than 10% of variance in the prediction of explicit attitude measures. In all domains, explicit measures are more valid than the IAT, but the IAT can be used as a measure of sensitive attitudes to reduce measurement error by using a multimethod measurement model.

Six Lessons for a Cogent Science of Implicit Bias and Its Criticism

Skepticism about the explanatory value of implicit bias in understanding social discrimination has grown considerably. The current article argues that both the dominant narrative about implicit bias as well as extant criticism are based on a selective focus on particular findings that fails to consider the broader literature on attitudes and implicit measures. To provide a basis to move forward, the current article discusses six lessons for a cogent science of implicit bias: (a) There is no evidence that people are unaware of the mental contents underlying their implicit biases; (b) conceptual correspondence is essential for interpretations of dissociations between implicit and explicit bias; (c) there is no basis to expect strong unconditional relations between implicit bias and behavior; (d) implicit bias is less (not more) stable over time than explicit bias; (e) context matters fundamentally for the outcomes obtained with implicit-bias measures; and (f) implicit measurement scores do not provide process-pure reflections of bias. The six lessons provide guidance for research that aims to provide more compelling evidence for the properties of implicit bias. At the same time, they suggest that extant criticism does not justify the conclusion that implicit bias is irrelevant for the understanding of social discrimination.

Grappling With Implicit Social Bias: A Perspective From Memory Research

There is now widespread consensus that social biases often influence actions independently of the actor's intention or awareness. The notion that we are sometimes blind to the origins of our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors also features prominently in research into domain-general human memory systems, which has a long history of distinguishing between implicit and explicit repercussions of past experience. A shared challenge across these fields of study is thus to identify techniques for effectively managing the contents of our memory stores, particularly those aspects into which we have limited metacognitive insight. In the present review, we examine recent developments in the cognitive neuroscience of human memory that speak to this challenge as it applies to the social domain. One area of progress pertains to the role of individuation, the process of attending to and representing in memory unique characteristics of individuals, which can limit the influence of generalizations based on social categories. A second body of work concerns breakthroughs in understanding memory consolidation, which determines the fate of newly encoded memories. We discuss the promise of each of these developments for identifying ways to become better stewards of our social minds. More generally, we suggest that, as with other forms of learning and memory, intentional practice and rehearsal may be critical in learning to minimize unwanted biases.