Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences. Impressionable Attitudes: Re-examining the malleability of implicit attitudes.

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1 Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Impressionable Attitudes: Re-examining the malleability of implicit attitudes Journal: Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Manuscript ID: TESS-00.R Manuscript Type: Original Article Specialty Area: Sociology

2 Page of Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Impressionable Attitudes: Re-examining the malleability of implicit attitudes Study Design Black Americans are a heavily stigmatized racial group in American society. Even though negative stereotypes are widespread, Blacks express positive attitudes toward their group when asked with explicit self-report methods, but implicit measures of attitudes reveal negative or neutral unconscious attitudes towards their own group. In this experiment we extend Dasgupta and Greenwald (00) to test the biases of White and Black respondents in a national sample and discover if repeated exposure to positive Black figures and negative White figures can change implicit biases. We add to the previous studies in a few ways. First, using a nationally representative sample to gather implicit attitudes is an important improvement for this literature that is largely limited to college students (Kawakami et al. 000) and internet samples (Nosek et a.l 00; Sabin et al. 00). We are also requesting an oversample of Blacks (preferably 0% of the total sample) in order to more closely examine Black attitudes. No previous research has focused on the malleability of Black implicit attitudes. Second, we add to the previous studies by assessing whether beliefs about meritocracy affect attitudes. We define beliefs about meritocracy as how much people believe that the current class structure in society is based on hard work and talent as opposed to unfair advantages like family connections. We hypothesize that exposure to positive Black exemplars will lead to more positive implicit attitudes towards Blacks and that a belief in meritocracy will lead to more effective interventions when positive Black exemplars are shown to participants. Procedure: First we will tell participants that we will be assessing their general knowledge by showing them pictures of famous Americans. For example, we will show participants in the experimental conditions a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. and have it accompanied by a correct description, Leader of the Black Civil Rights movement in the 0 s and an incorrect

3 Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Page of description, Former Vice President of the United States. The task will be to match the name and description to the picture. Participants will also view the name of each exemplar again and categorize each person as Black or White. In the first conditions the participants will view pictures of pro-white and anti-black exemplars, in the second condition the participants will view pictures of pro-black and anti-white exemplars, and in the control condition the participants will view pictures of insects and flowers. After completing the general knowledge task participants will take the Racial Attitudes IAT. We will also ask participants to explicitly rate Blacks and Whites on thermometer scales that assess how warm (favorable) they feel towards Blacks and Whites. The dimensions are: ugly-beautiful, bad-good, unpleasant-pleasant, dishonest-honest, and awful-nice (Dasgupta and Greenwald 00). Finally, we will give participants a -question assessment of their beliefs about the meritocracy of society. Exemplars: We will use pictures of famous Black and White individuals : admired Blacks (e.g. Denzel Washington), disliked Blacks (e.g. Mike Tyson), admired Whites (e.g. Tom Hanks), and disliked Whites (e.g. Ted Bundy). Each positive picture will be followed with only positive response choices, and each negative picture with only negative choices, so even respondents who do not recognize the picture will know that the individual is famous for something positive/negative. The control condition will use pictures of flowers and insects. IATs: Participants will complete a computer-administered Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess racial bias (Greenwald, ; 00). We will show four evaluative categories in sets of two on either corner of the screen (e.g. Pleasant and Black), and the associated words or pictures will flash in the middle of the screen. Quicker associations with terms indicate a stronger Dasgupta and Greenwald (00) used, but we will use this shortened version to save units.

4 Page of Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences association of that term with that concept. If the normal IAT is too lengthy for the structure of this experiment then I propose to use the brief IAT procedure (Sriram and Greenwald 00). Contributions to Science: Research has shown that both Whites and Blacks with negative implicit attitudes towards Blacks discriminate more against them (Dividio 00; Correll et al. 00; Ashburn-Nardo et al. 00).There are at best mixed results on the actual implicit preference of Blacks towards their group. Samples of college students suggest Blacks have a small implicit preference for Whites (Ashburn-Nardo et al. 00; Banaji, Greenwald and Rosier ). Nosek et al. (00) found further support for this in a self-selected Internet sample which showed that Blacks have a slight implicit preference for Whites (d=0.). Rudman, Feinberg, & Fairchild (00) found that low status groups on average have a more negative implicit bias toward their own group but not a bias towards the higher status groups. This study did not, however, examine Blacks as one of their low status groups (only poor people, Jews, and overweight people). In contrast, Nosek, et al. s (00) self-selected Internet sample found that Blacks had no preference for Whites or Blacks on average (d=.0). The current research project In accordance with the procedural design by Nosek, Greenwald, and Banaji (00), the IAT will consist of seven blocks. The first Block will consist of twenty trials that sort Black and White terms using the keys d or k (e.g. Black with d and White with k). In the second block participants will sort the evaluative terms (e.g. Pleasant or Unpleasant) for twenty trials. In the third block participants will sort the terms from all four categories in twenty trials (e.g. Black with Pleasant and White with Unpleasant). Block four will also sort all four categories using the two keys but there will be forty trials. Block five will have forty trials that sort Black and White using the opposite keys as the previous blocks (e.g. Black with k and White with d ). Block six will sort all four categories in the opposite way as blocks three and four such as Black with bad and White with good in twenty trials. Block seven will do the same thing as Block six in forty trials. For each block the category labels (Black and White) will appear on the top left and right of the computer screen. When an individual makes an error in categorizing the stimuli, a red X will appear to indicate the error and participants will be told to correct their answer. The interval between the occurrence of one trial s response and the presentation of the next stimulus will be about 0 ms. Half of the sample will switch the order (swapping Blocks - with Blocks, and ). This procedure uses only the two blocks. We will show two category labels and the set of exemplars for each category (Black and ebony White and caucasian ) before the blocks start for about ten seconds and we will tell them to keep them in mind. Each block will have trials. The first blocks will have two categories (eg. Pleasant+White followed by Unpleasant+Black). The participants will sort the stimuli in the middle of the screen with these categories as in the original IAT design. The second block would have the other two categories (Unpleasant +White followed by Pleasant+Black). The interval between a correct response and the presentation of the next stimulus was 00 ms. Half of the sample would get blocks in the opposite order from those mentioned above (eg. Pleasant+Black followed by Unpleasant+White for the first block).

5 Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Page of will gather a nationally representative sample of Blacks and all Americans to give the best indicator to date of the actual implicit bias. This study also tests the manipulation of these attitudes in order to examine a possible method to improve these behaviors. This research project will also contribute to science by testing the malleability of implicit racial bias on a nationally representative sample of Black Americans. Having a nationally representative IAT allows for a comparison of the scores to the large (but nonrandom) Internet samples of IAT s often used (Banaji et al.). Joy-Gaba and Nosek (0) found that there was a small change in the implicit attitudes of Whites after replicating Dasgupta and Greenwald (00) but they purposely did not include Blacks in their sample because their implicit attitudes showed no preference for either race. There are many possible implications of Black implicit attitudes that have thus far gone un-explored. For example, the fact that Blacks may not have an implicit preference may cause their attitudes to be even more malleable than Whites. It may be easier to sway the attitudes of a group that has, on average, no strong preference than to move the preferences of a group to favor an out-group, because there is less cognitive space needed to travel to have a preference. One could also argue that because race is not as salient for Whites in their daily lives as it is for minority groups, Whites need the categorization component more than Blacks to change their bias. My research project explores this relationship where it has previously been overlooked. This research project also seeks to determine whether meritocracy beliefs affect explicit and/or implicit attitudes towards Blacks. McCoy and Major (00) showed that individuals who were primed to have meritocratic beliefs were more accepting when facing discrimination. Thus meritocratic beliefs make it more likely for people to believe inequality is justified. I hypothesize that exposure to positive exemplars should have a stronger effect on individuals who believe in

6 Page of Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences meritocracy because they would be more susceptible to believe that those positive exemplars are evidence that the group is meritorious. Benefits to Other Disciplines: Most of the research on implicit attitudes is in psychology (Greenwald ), however sociologists and political scientists are very interested in them as well. Quillian (00), a sociologist, calls implicit prejudice unconscious racism and believes that it should be studied more in sociology. The study that I am proposing will expand knowledge of implicit attitudes and will be helpful for those in multiple disciplines. Psychologists will be interested in these data because it is an extension of the study by Dasgupta and Greenwald (00) and can assess the validity of the conclusions about implicit attitudes, based on college students and non-representative self-selected Internet samples, with a nationally representative sample. Political scientists will also be interested in the subtle racial biases that affect politics and the importance of meritocratic beliefs (Huddy and Feldman 00). Request for Respondents: The first phase of the experiment consists of questions about the exemplars taken from Dasgupta and Greenwald (00) and will require units. Participants will also be asked to racially categorize the exemplars, requiring more units. The second phase of the experiment is the Racial Attitudes IAT, consisting of blocks: one for practice and four to compare response times. This will take about minutes to complete so I estimate that it will require units. The explicit measures of Black attitudes are also taken from Dasgupta and Greenwald (00) and consist of two questions ( units). There are meritocracy questions that were taken from the GSS ( units). Overall this study is a total of units, yielding an N of 0. I request an oversample of Blacks so that they make up roughly 0 percent of respondents, and I understand that will reduce the sample size.

7 Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Page of References Asendorpf, Banse, & Mücke, 00. Double dissociation between implicit and explicit personality self-concept: The case of shy behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,, 0. Ashburn-Nardo, L., Knowles, M. L., & Monteith, M. J. (00). Black Americans implicit racial associations and their implications for intergroup judgment. Social Cognition,,. Banaji, M. R., Greenwald, A. G., & Rosier, M. R.. Implicit esteem: When collectives shape individuals. Paper presented at the Preconference on Self, Toronto, Canada. Bosson, J. K., Swann, W. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (000). Stalking the perfect measure of implicit self-esteem: The blind men and the elephant revisited? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,,. Brown RJ, Vivian J, Hewstone M.. Changing attitudes through intergroup contract: the effects of membership salience. European Journal of Social Psychology : -. Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., & Wittenbrink, B. (00). The police officer s dilemma: Using ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology,,. Dasgupta N, Greenwald AG. 00. On the malleability of automatic attitudes: combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. :00 Dijksterhuis A, Aarts H, Bargh JA, van Knippenberg A On the relation between associative strength and automatic behavior. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. :. Dovidio, John F., Kerry Kawakami, and Samuel L Gaertner. 00. Implicit and Explicit Prejudice and Interracial Interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology :. Egloff, Schwerdtfeger, Schmukle, S. C. (00). Temporal stability of the Implicit Association Test anxiety. Journal of Personality Assessment, (),. Fazio, Olson, (00). Implicit measures in social cognition: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology,,. Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review,,. Greenwald, McGhee, Schwartz. Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition:the Implicit association test. Journal of Personality and social Psychology. ():-0. Greenwald, A.G., Banaji, M.R., Rudman, L.A., Farnham, S.D., Nosek, B.A., & Mellott, D.S. (00). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. Psychological Review,,. Huddy and Feldman. 00. On Assessing the Political Effects of Racial Prejudice. Annual Review of Political Science. ():. Jost, J. T., Pelham, B. W., & Carvallo, M. (00). Non-conscious forms of system justification:cognitive, affective, and behavioral preferences for higher status groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,, -0. Jost, J. T., & Thompson, E. P. (000). Group-based dominance and opposition to equality as independent predictors of self-esteem, ethnocentrism, and social policy attitudes among African Americans and European Americans. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,, 0. Jost, Banaji. (00). A Decade of System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of

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9 Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Page of IAT Words Racial attitudes IAT: White names: Josh Andrew Brandon Justin Ian Black names: Lamar Malik Lionel Jamal Torrance Unpleasant words: Sickness Cancer Vomit War Poison Pleasant word: Rainbow Gift Joy Paradise Laughter Admired Black Descriptions NAME TRUE DESCRIPTION FALSE DESCRIPTION Martin Luther King Leader of the Black Civil Rights movement in the 0s. Former Vice President of the United States. Colin Powell Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff for the U.S. Department of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Defense. Denzel Washington Famous actor who played the leading role in the recent movie Fallen. Famous golf champion. Disliked White exemplars NAME Al Capone Ted Kaczynski Howard Stern TRUE DESCRIPTION American gangster who terrorized Chicago in the 0s. The Unabomber who injured and killed using letter bombs. Notoriously offensive radio talk show host. FALSE DESCRIPTION Leader of an antigovernment militia. Convicted pedophile. Accused of embezzlement. Disliked Black exemplars NAME TRUE DESCRIPTION FALSE DESCRIPTION O.J. Simpson Charged with the brutal killing of his wife and her friend. Embezzled millions of tax payers money. Mike Tyson Suspended from boxing for biting Convicted pedophile. off his opponent s ear. Marion Barry Former Mayor of Washington D.C. accused of buying and using cocaine. Mafia member.

10 Page of Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences Admired White exemplars NAME TRUE DESCRIPTION FALSE DESCRIPTION Tom Hanks Received Oscars for his acting roles in Famous American tennis player. Philadelphia and Forest Gump. John F. Kennedy Former American President assassinated Former Vice President of the United States. in Dallas. Peter Jennings News anchor for ABC. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Flower stimuli Lily Rose Sunflower Tulip Insects stimuli Cockroach Mosquito Tarantula Meritocracy Questions Here are different opinions about social differences in this country. Please tell me for each one whether you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree. ) If someone has a high social or economic position that indicates the person has special abilities or great accomplishments. ) In the United States what one can achieve in life depends mainly upon one's family background ) America has an open society. What one achieves in life no longer depends on one's family background, but on the abilities one has and the education one acquires.