Andrew Rivers

Implementation Intentions Reduce Implicit Stereotype Activation and Application

Research has found that implementation intentions, if–then action plans (e.g., “if I see a Black face, I will think safe”), reduce stereotyping on implicit measures. However, it is unknown by what process(es) implementation intentions reduce implicit stereotyping. The present research examines the effects of implementation intentions on stereotype activation (e.g., extent to which stereotypic information is accessible) and stereotype application (e.g., extent to which accessible stereotypes are applied in judgment). In addition, we assessed the efficiency of implementation intentions by manipulating cognitive resources (e.g., digit-span, restricted response window) while participants made judgments on an implicit stereotyping measure. Across four studies, implementation intentions reduced implicit stereotyping. This decrease in stereotyping was associated with reductions in both stereotype activation and application. In addition, these effects of implementation intentions were highly efficient and associated with reduced stereotyping even for groups for which people may have little practice inhibiting stereotypes (e.g., gender).

Implicit Bias Reflects the Personal and the Social

Author(s): Rivers, Andrew M; Rees, Heather; Calanchini, Jimmy; Sherman, Jeff | Abstract: This issue’s target article by Payne, Vuletich, and Lundberg (PVaL) does exactly what one should, presenting an argument that is thought-provoking and that challenges current orthodoxy. It also addresses an issue that has increasingly confounded attitudes researchers in recent years. The construct of “implicit bias” was initially conceptualized as a latent construct that exists within persons, relatively resistant to situational influences. A plethora of theoretical models converge on the notion that implicit biases, including intergroup biases, are representations that are stored in memory (e.g., Devine,1989; Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, a Williams, 1995; Gawronski a Bodenhausen, 2006; Greenwald et al., 2002; Wilson, Lindsay, a Schooler, 2000). Although some perspectives emphasize the role of culture in contributing to implicit measures of bias, even these perspectives rely on the learning and storage of mental representations (Olson a Fazio, 2004).

The Weapons Identification Task: Recommendations for adequately powered research

This article synthesizes the extant literature on the Weapons Identification Task (WIT), a sequential priming paradigm developed to investigate the impact of racial priming on identification of stereotype-congruent and stereotype-irrelevant objects. Given recent controversy over the replicability of and statistical power required to detect priming effects, the aim of this synthesis is to systematically assess the literature in order to develop recommendations for statistical power in future research with the WIT paradigm. To develop these recommendations, the present article first quantitatively ascertains the magnitude of publication bias in the extant literature. Next, expected effect sizes and power recommendations are generated from the extant literature. Finally, a close conceptual replication of the WIT paradigm is conducted to prospectively test these recommendations. Racial priming effects are detected in this prospective test providing increased confidence in the WIT priming effect and credibility to the proposed recommendations for power.

Measures of Implicit Gender Attitudes May Exaggerate Differences in Underlying Associations among Chinese Urban and Rural Women

The oppression of women in rural China is more severe than in urban China, not only because the two areas differ in terms of social hierarchy, but also because urban women are more likely to fight against their subordination, which is endorsed by conventional social views on gender. To independently assess these relationships, we applied the Quadruple Process model to measure the processes underlying implicit gender attitudes in a sample of urban and rural females. The results indicated that the urban women had higher in-group favoritism than did the rural women. Application of the Quad model, however, showed that pro-women associations were similarly activated among urban and rural women, but that women in rural settings more effectively inhibited activated associations. Differences in inhibition, rather than in activated associations, appear to account for the less favorable attitudes among rural women. Thus, the differences in attitudinal responses among urban and rural women exaggerate the differences in underlying evaluative associations with respect to gender and conceal differences in self-regulating the expression of those associations.