The Implicit Association Test: Its Uses (and Potential Misuses) in Organizations

1. The Implicit Association Test:Its Uses (and Potential Misuses) in Organizations Leslie Ashburn-Nardo, Ph.D. Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

2. Why focus on race?

3. Why focus on race? Stauffer & Buckley (2005)

4. “Everyday” Prejudice, Ethnic Harassment

5. 2 Forms of Social Cognition Explicit • Judgments, decisions of which we are consciously aware • Deliberate, intentional • Within our control • Easy to assess Implicit • Automatically activated evaluations, associations • With little intent, conscious awareness • More difficult to assess

6. Explicit: Survey data (White respondents)

7. Social desirability Fazio et al. (1995)

8. Lack of awareness Bargh et al. (1996)

9. What is the IAT? • Computerized dual-categorization task • Participants assign stimuli to categories using 2 keys • Typically, 2 social & 2 evaluative categories • e.g., White/Black & pleasant/unpleasant • Reaction times reflect the relative ease of pairing social & evaluative • Faster RTs = concepts more closely associated

10. Why reaction times? • Response latencies reflect automatic associations • Faster = more closely associated violent hostile BLACKS dangerous industrious successful

11. The IAT effect • Average RTs from White+pleasant / Black+unpleasant • Average RTs from White+unpleasant / Black+pleasant • Calculate difference score such that positive values = ingroup preference

12. Distribution w/ White Participants (Ps)  Black preference White preference  Monteith, Voils, & Ashburn-Nardo (2001) Social Cognition

13. What does the Race IAT predict (White Ps)? McConnell & Leibold (2001) All measures coded such that greater #s = more positive attitudes, behaviors toward White vs. Black

14. Why does this matter?

15. What does the Race (Stereotype) IAT predict (White Ps)? Rudman & Ashmore (2007)

16. Summary of Race IAT findings • Most Whites implicitly prefer Whites over Blacks • IAT predicts Whites’ subtle behaviors that Blacks interpret as negativity/prejudice • IAT (esp. the stereotype version) predicts Whites’ discriminatory behaviors toward Blacks

17. Potential Misuses • Decisions regarding hiring, firing White participants Black participants Monteith, Voils, & Ashburn-Nardo (2001) Social Cognition Ashburn-Nardo, Knowles, & Monteith (2003) Social Cognition

18. Potential Misuses • Decisions regarding hiring, firing Ziegart & Hanges (2005)

19. Potential Uses • Diversity training • Goal: to remove obstacles that might prevent the professional/personal growth of stigmatized group members (Noe & Ford, 1992) • One obstacle: lack of awareness; people often fail to recognize prejudice

20. Study 1: IAT as consciousness-raising tool? (Monteith, Voils, & Ashburn-Nardo, 2001) • Does the IAT provide palpable info? • How do people interpret and react to the detection of biased performance on the IAT?

21. Study 1: Method • 79 White college student participants • Procedure • Took racial IAT • Indicate on which trials they felt they responded especially fast, especially slow, or neither fast nor slow • Speculate as to why they may have been especially slow for certain types of trials • Affect checklist

22. Study 1 Results:Is the IAT effect palpable? • 64% “felt” the IAT effect (fast on congruent; slow on incongruent) • Actual IAT score and detection of bias, r = .39***

23. Study 1 Results: Attributions and affect Detection of bias and feelings of Negself, r = .30**

24. Study 1: Summary • 95% exhibited an IAT bias favoring Whites over Blacks • 64% “felt” that they were faster when White + pleasant and slower when Black + pleasant • 17% attributed their response times to race-related factors, and this was associated with greater Negself

25. Study 2: IAT as teaching tool? (Morris & Ashburn-Nardo, revision in prep) • Does taking the IAT via the demo website (www.implicit.harvard.edu) teach people about implicit social cognition and bias? • Does the IAT web demo make people aware that they may have implicit bias? • What is the affective impact of receiving feedback from the IAT web demo?

26. Study 2: Method • 35 college students enrolled in undergraduate social psychology courses at Butler & IUPUI • Procedure • Time 1: baseline knowledge about IAT; beliefs about own biases, beliefs about others’ biases • Time 2: IAT web demo; positive, negative affect ratings in response to bias feedback • Time 3: following class discussion, knowledge about IAT; implicit/explicit social cognition and bias; positive, negative affect; beliefs about own biases, beliefs about others’ biases; educational usefulness of IAT demo

27. Study 2: Results

28. Study 2: Summary • Majority of students implicitly favored Whites over Blacks • After taking the IAT and discussing it in class • students more knowledgeable about IAT and implicit bias. • students more readily recognized possibility that they and others have implicit biases. • students reported more positive than negative affect regarding feedback. • students saw IAT demo as useful • Even w/o classroom discussion • students reported more positive than negative affect regarding feedback.

29. Conclusions • IAT inappropriate for selection, termination decisions • IAT appropriate for diversity training • Increases awareness of implicit biases • To the extent that people are made aware, they may be motivated to self-regulate • Evokes more positive than negative affect • Seen as worthwhile experience • Easy to administer (via website demo)