PSYCH M165 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Implicit-Association Test, Impression Management, Social Desirability Bias
Primer on Implicit Bias
Ch 1, pg 16-19
• Implicit bias: attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and
decisions in an unconscious manner
o Activated involuntarily without awareness or intentional control
o Not accessible through introspection
• Associates developed over the course of a lifetime beginning at a very early age
through exposure to direct and indirect messages
o Can be influenced by life experiences, media and news programming
Characteristics of Implicit Biases
• Pervasive and robust - everyone possesses them
• Implicit and explicit biases are regarded as related but distinct mental constructs
o Not mutually exclusive and may reinforce each other
o Implicit attitudes may be better at predicting and or influencing behavior than
self reported explicit attitudes
• Do not necessarily align with our declared believes or reflect stances we would
explicitly endorse
• Tend to favor our own ingroup but can also be biased against our own ingroup
o Categorization of ingroup vs outgroup is often automatic and unconscious
• Have real-world effects on behavior
• Are malleable
o Can be unlearned and replaced with new mental associations
Measuring Implicit Cognition
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