Implicit Attitudes
There have been few other findings in social psychology that have achieved such quick popularity as the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short. The form of IAT that has given it its publicity is the Race IAT – and consequently, a desirable measure to bring up in civil rights discussions. It has even been used to accuse white people of being unknowingly and even secretly racist. An accusation that is incorrect and unwarranted, and has no evidence trail to support it.
IAT measures how fast you respond to what it poses as associations (through a cognitive-heuristic process called priming) between two stimuli such as words and pictures. The theory is the faster you respond the more automatic an association exists within your mind between the two stimuli. For instance, if you respond faster to the association of a black face to a negative word than you do a black face to a positive word, you may hold what is called an implicit negative attitude toward black people.
Now the IAT is exciting and at the same time disheartening. It is exciting because people tend to self-report what they believe according to what they feel is expected of them, and with the IAT we can easily tease out the kind of biases previously only revealed in brain scans such as fMRIs (functional MRIs). It is disheartening because it may reveal deep secrets within our subconscious we don’t full understand and what we’d prefer to keep out of sight and out of mind.
Before the IAT, empirical findings revealed what was called general attitudes and specific attitudes. General attitudes tend to be default and even automatic (and well, general), while specific attitudes are the exceptions that tend to override general attitudes. To illustrate this, if for instance a white man (Tom) could state his overall general and specific attitudes regarding a black friend (Trevor) and black men in general, in a single sentence, he might say, “Trevor is not like most black men; he’s smart, trustworthy, and socially desirable.”
Research is still being conducted on what attitudes are, the relationships among the various forms of attitude (general/specific, implicit/explicit), their connections with other constructs, and what recipe of constructs/attitudes predicts behavior. It is very likely that implicit attitudes provide a vantage point different than general attitudes that in reality is looking at the same construct (likewise for specific/explicit attitudes).
When we look at fMRI studies involving race, the implicit attitudes show up in the form of threat processing – the portion of the brain (amygdala) known for its detection of threats, lights up. When the stimuli hangs long enough for them to be consciously recognized, other portions of the brain (frontal lobe generally) know as the command and control center, also lights up. This is consistent with social psychology research revealing that we usually override the threat processing with controlled cognition and behavior – and with specific attitudes that are known to override general attitudes (such is an overly-simplistic view but suffices for the post).
Guess what? We share this with other animal species.
Given the subconscious, automatic, and sensitive nature of amygdala function, much remains to be researched regarding how implicit, explicit, general and specific attitudes drive thought and behavior. Also, given the IAT is built by humans in their biased (and limited) view of how people think, and how the Race IAT typically shows only a very limited stimuli (only a portion of the face with unknown identity -- higher ambiguity tends to heighten threat response), we cannot stipulate with any degree of certainty there is a correlation between the IAT scores and the social meaning we give them.
Since we understand very little about the implicit social nature of human beings, and lack the ability to quantitatively measure certain aspects of it, it is difficult at best to measure implicit oppression and tie it to IAT scores. Thus, we cannot say for sure that for instance a strong preference for whites in one’s IAT scores will correlate to their behaving in a way that oppresses black people.
But let’s say that we can. How can we fix it? Mere knowledge of our implicit selves does not automatically cause change in our implicit selves. If such was so we wouldn’t have problems kicking habits.
Let’s flip the coin.
Since all this boils down to implicit human social cognition, there is the other side – the responding of blacks to the implicit oppression. This is called internalized racism. Such describes only the end result of a process often called the self-fulfilling prophesy. If you look at blacks throughout American history that rose above the oppression even when the oppression was explicit and strong, you have to acknowledge that changing the receiving end is effective.
It is important to understand that the meaning of an implicit message in the mind of the sender exists only in that person’s mind (even if it is subconscious), and the meaning taken by the receiver only exists in the mind of the receiver. So how does the receiver know for sure the meaning they associate to a message is what the sender intended (either implicitly or explicitly)? He/she rarely knows for sure – especially since all of this happens below our conscious awareness.
Since sending a message happens and is done (whether implicit or explicit) it cannot be taken back. Also, messages that people send that are implicit are very hard to deprogram and reprogram, but they can be. However, at the receiving end, there is time. To paraphrase Stephen Covey, “Between stimulus and response there is space” – space where a different course of action can explicitly be learned. Even if all senders change and never send implicitly oppressive messages again, the receivers still may interpret such, and when it comes to threat processing, erring on the side of caution is typical.
So I propose we continue researching and educating the public regarding the implicit side of human nature, but that we do not limit it to simply the sending end. We indeed need to keep the focus on the sending side of the equation but avoid language and terms that are provocative, while having the mindset of inclusion rather than pontificating.
Regardless, the largest and quickest results will come from focusing on the receiving end. Educating and training at the receiving end can quickly empower blacks and reverse the self-fulfilling prophesy cycle. Such work should receive the lion’s share of resources and effort.
Unfortunately, we don’t hear much about focusing on the receiving end, and in politics, any mention of the receiving end will surely bring accusations of racism.
IAT measures how fast you respond to what it poses as associations (through a cognitive-heuristic process called priming) between two stimuli such as words and pictures. The theory is the faster you respond the more automatic an association exists within your mind between the two stimuli. For instance, if you respond faster to the association of a black face to a negative word than you do a black face to a positive word, you may hold what is called an implicit negative attitude toward black people.
Now the IAT is exciting and at the same time disheartening. It is exciting because people tend to self-report what they believe according to what they feel is expected of them, and with the IAT we can easily tease out the kind of biases previously only revealed in brain scans such as fMRIs (functional MRIs). It is disheartening because it may reveal deep secrets within our subconscious we don’t full understand and what we’d prefer to keep out of sight and out of mind.
Before the IAT, empirical findings revealed what was called general attitudes and specific attitudes. General attitudes tend to be default and even automatic (and well, general), while specific attitudes are the exceptions that tend to override general attitudes. To illustrate this, if for instance a white man (Tom) could state his overall general and specific attitudes regarding a black friend (Trevor) and black men in general, in a single sentence, he might say, “Trevor is not like most black men; he’s smart, trustworthy, and socially desirable.”
Research is still being conducted on what attitudes are, the relationships among the various forms of attitude (general/specific, implicit/explicit), their connections with other constructs, and what recipe of constructs/attitudes predicts behavior. It is very likely that implicit attitudes provide a vantage point different than general attitudes that in reality is looking at the same construct (likewise for specific/explicit attitudes).
When we look at fMRI studies involving race, the implicit attitudes show up in the form of threat processing – the portion of the brain (amygdala) known for its detection of threats, lights up. When the stimuli hangs long enough for them to be consciously recognized, other portions of the brain (frontal lobe generally) know as the command and control center, also lights up. This is consistent with social psychology research revealing that we usually override the threat processing with controlled cognition and behavior – and with specific attitudes that are known to override general attitudes (such is an overly-simplistic view but suffices for the post).
Guess what? We share this with other animal species.
Given the subconscious, automatic, and sensitive nature of amygdala function, much remains to be researched regarding how implicit, explicit, general and specific attitudes drive thought and behavior. Also, given the IAT is built by humans in their biased (and limited) view of how people think, and how the Race IAT typically shows only a very limited stimuli (only a portion of the face with unknown identity -- higher ambiguity tends to heighten threat response), we cannot stipulate with any degree of certainty there is a correlation between the IAT scores and the social meaning we give them.
Since we understand very little about the implicit social nature of human beings, and lack the ability to quantitatively measure certain aspects of it, it is difficult at best to measure implicit oppression and tie it to IAT scores. Thus, we cannot say for sure that for instance a strong preference for whites in one’s IAT scores will correlate to their behaving in a way that oppresses black people.
But let’s say that we can. How can we fix it? Mere knowledge of our implicit selves does not automatically cause change in our implicit selves. If such was so we wouldn’t have problems kicking habits.
Let’s flip the coin.
Since all this boils down to implicit human social cognition, there is the other side – the responding of blacks to the implicit oppression. This is called internalized racism. Such describes only the end result of a process often called the self-fulfilling prophesy. If you look at blacks throughout American history that rose above the oppression even when the oppression was explicit and strong, you have to acknowledge that changing the receiving end is effective.
It is important to understand that the meaning of an implicit message in the mind of the sender exists only in that person’s mind (even if it is subconscious), and the meaning taken by the receiver only exists in the mind of the receiver. So how does the receiver know for sure the meaning they associate to a message is what the sender intended (either implicitly or explicitly)? He/she rarely knows for sure – especially since all of this happens below our conscious awareness.
Since sending a message happens and is done (whether implicit or explicit) it cannot be taken back. Also, messages that people send that are implicit are very hard to deprogram and reprogram, but they can be. However, at the receiving end, there is time. To paraphrase Stephen Covey, “Between stimulus and response there is space” – space where a different course of action can explicitly be learned. Even if all senders change and never send implicitly oppressive messages again, the receivers still may interpret such, and when it comes to threat processing, erring on the side of caution is typical.
So I propose we continue researching and educating the public regarding the implicit side of human nature, but that we do not limit it to simply the sending end. We indeed need to keep the focus on the sending side of the equation but avoid language and terms that are provocative, while having the mindset of inclusion rather than pontificating.
Regardless, the largest and quickest results will come from focusing on the receiving end. Educating and training at the receiving end can quickly empower blacks and reverse the self-fulfilling prophesy cycle. Such work should receive the lion’s share of resources and effort.
Unfortunately, we don’t hear much about focusing on the receiving end, and in politics, any mention of the receiving end will surely bring accusations of racism.
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