Latest Implicit Association Test Stories

Voters' racial attitudes can influence candidate preference, sometimes unconsciously Voters' racial attitudes, both conscious and unconscious, may be a significant factor in this year's U.S. presidential election, particularly since whites tend to prefer people of their own race, according to research presented at the 120th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. "People may not even be aware that they have certain racial attitudes and that could be why, even with...

After the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, many proclaimed that the country had entered a post-racial era in which race was no longer an issue. However, a new large-scale study shows that racial attitudes have already played a substantial role in 2012, during the Republican primaries. They may play an even larger role in this year's presidential election. The study, led by psychologists at the University of Washington, shows that between January and April 2012 eligible voters who...

Johns Hopkins study suggests medical students may "learn" to treat nonwhite patients differently than white patients New Johns Hopkins research shows that medical students — just like the general American population — may have unconscious if not overt preferences for white people, but this innate bias does not appear to translate into different or lesser health care of other races. The research findings, published in the Sept. 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Psychologists have found that people may make economic and trust decisions based on unconscious or unintentional racial biases, according to a new study. The study was conducted in the laboratory of New York University Professor Elizabeth Phelps."Decisions in the worlds of business, law, education, medicine, and even more ordinary daily interactions between individuals, all rely on trust," the researchers were quoted as saying. "In an increasingly...

Psychologists have found that people may make economic and trust decisions based on unconscious or unintentional racial biases. The study, conducted in the laboratory of New York University Professor Elizabeth Phelps, is published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."Decisions in the worlds of business, law, education, medicine, and even more ordinary daily interactions between individuals, all rely on trust," the researchers wrote. "In an...

When people are feeling badly about themselves, they're more likely to show bias against people who are different. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, examines how that works."This is one of the oldest accounts of why people stereotype and have prejudice: It makes us feel better about ourselves," says Jeffrey Sherman of the University of California, Davis, who wrote the study with Thomas Allen. "When we feel bad about...

Following the suicide of a relative or close friend, surviving family members and friends are left with a number of painful questions: "What made them do it?," "Why didn't they get help?"  The most troublesome question is often, "Is there anything I could have done to prevent this?" People who are contemplating suicide tend to conceal their behavior, or deny they are having suicidal thoughts, so it can be difficult to identify warning signs. Even experienced...

Implicit stereotypes "“ thoughts that people may be unwilling to express or may not even know that they have "“ may have a powerful effect on gender equity in science and mathematics engagement and performance, according to a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The international study involving more than half a million participants in 34 countries revealed that 70 percent harbor implicit stereotypes associating science with males more than...

About 70 percent of people who took a version of a test that measures racial attitudes had an unconscious preference for white people, U.S. researchers said. The study, published the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, showed the Implicit Association Test, a psychological tool, has validity in predicting behavior and, in particular, that it has significantly greater validity than self-reports in the socially sensitive topics of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age....

In the decade since the Implicit Association Test was introduced, its most surprising and controversial finding is its indication that about 70 percent of those who took a version of the test that measures racial attitudes have an unconscious, or implicit, preference for white people compared to blacks. This contrasts with figures generally under 20 percent for self report, or survey, measures of race bias.A new study published this week validates those findings, showing that the Implicit...