A Threat in the Computer: The Race Implicit Association Test as a Stereotype Threat Experience

Three experiments test whether the threat of appearing racist leads White participants to perform worse on the race Implicit Association Test (IAT) and whether self-affirmation can protect from this threat. Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that White participants show a stereotype threat effect when comp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 2004-12, Vol.30 (12), p.1611-1624
Main Authors: Frantz, Cynthia M., Cuddy, Amy J. C., Burnett, Molly, Ray, Heidi, Hart, Allen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attitude
Attitudes
Continental Population Groups
Fear
Female
Humans
Implicit Association Test
Male
Motivation
Perceived threats
Perceptions
Prejudice
Psychological tests
Psychometrics
Race
Racism
Self Concept
Selfaffirmation
Social Attitudes
Stereotypes
Stereotyping
User-Computer Interface
White people
Whites
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Summary:Three experiments test whether the threat of appearing racist leads White participants to perform worse on the race Implicit Association Test (IAT) and whether self-affirmation can protect from this threat. Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that White participants show a stereotype threat effect when completing the race IAT, leading to stronger pro-White scores when the test is believed to be diagnostic of racism. This effect increases for domain-identified (highly motivated to control prejudice) participants (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, self-affirmation inoculates participants against stereotype threat while taking the race IAT. These findings have methodological implications for use of the race IAT and theoretical implications concerning the malleability of automatic prejudice and the potential interpersonal effects of the fear of appearing racist.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167204266650