Dissociating automatic associations: Comparing two implicit measurements of race bias

Hannah I. Volpert‐Esmond; Laura D. Scherer; Bruce D. Bartholow

doi:10.1002/ejsp.2655

Dissociating automatic associations: Comparing two implicit measurements of race bias

European Journal of Social Psychology ◽

10.1002/ejsp.2655 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 50 (4) ◽

pp. 876-888

Author(s):

Hannah I. Volpert‐Esmond ◽

Laura D. Scherer ◽

Bruce D. Bartholow

Keyword(s):

Race Bias ◽

Automatic Associations

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A Newspaper’s Effect on the Strength of Automatic Associations in Memory

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications ◽

10.1027/1864-1105/a000057 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Florian Arendt

Keyword(s):

Treatment Group ◽

Term Effect ◽

Control Group ◽

Implicit Measure ◽

Short Term ◽

Short Term Treatment ◽

Short Term Effect ◽

Automatic Associations ◽

Foreign Nationality ◽

The Impact

A test was done to see if reading a newspaper which consistently overrepresents foreigners as criminals strengthens the automatic association between foreign country and criminal in memory (i.e., implicit cultivation). Further, an investigation was done to find out if reading articles from the same newspaper produces a short-term effect on the same measure and if (1) emotionalization of the newspaper texts, (2) emotional reactions of the reader (indicated by arousal), and (3) attributed text credibility moderate the short-term treatment effect. Eighty-five participants were assigned to one of three experimental conditions. Participants in the control group received short factual crime texts, where the nationality of the offender was not mentioned. Participants in the factual treatment group received the same texts, but the foreign nationality was mentioned. Participants in the emotionalized treatment group received emotionalized articles (i.e., texts which are high in vividness and frequency) covering the same crimes, with the foreign nationality mentioned. Supporting empirical evidence for implicit cultivation and a short-term effect was found. However, only emotionalized articles produced a short-term effect on the strength of the automatic association, indicating that newspaper texts must have a minimum of stimulus intensity to overcome an effect threshold. There were no moderating effects of arousal or credibility pertaining to the impact on the implicit measure. However, credibility moderated the short-term effect on a first-order judgment (i.e., estimated frequency of foreigners of all criminals). This indicates that a newspaper’s effect on the strength of automatic associations is relatively independent from processes of propositional reasoning.

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