Implicit stereotypes are controllable and shaped by context

Evidence

Cognitive indicators of socially shared understanding have recently revealed themselves to be less automatic and more malleable than psychologists originally thought (Payne, 2001). If the relatively automatic forms of understanding indeed are controllable, then they should correlate with more explicit forms of response, and researchers do sometimes find that the two kinds of responses correlate nicely (e.g., Rudman, Ashmore, & Gary, 2001). Motives can operate even on an unconscious level: Chronically active egalitarian goals can prevent preconscious, automatic activation of stereotypes (Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel, & Schaal, 1999). Social context also moderates what were thought to be relatively automatic associations; a black man in a church is perceived differently than when he is on a run-down street (Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 2001). — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 333

Categorization

• XREF: Directly updates any vault claims premised on implicit bias being rigidly automatic and uncontrollable — an important correction to Allport-era and early IAT-era framings. — connects to: Implicit stereotyping occurs in people who explicitly reject prejudice. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 3; Stereotype-driven trait-priming effects operate without conscious awareness and are culturally shared — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 223
• QUESTION: If implicit measures are context-malleable, what distinguishes stable dispositional prejudice from situational activation — and does that undermine IAT-based predictive claims in the vault?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 333