Indirect behavioral measures of implicit bias predate modern reaction-time methods.

Evidence

1951; Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, Sechrest, & Grove, 1981). Those calls have not gone unheeded, and there is consequently a substantial history of social psychological uses of indirect measures, especially in the domain of prejudice research. For example, indirect measures used by Word, Zanna, and Cooper (1974) showed that White interviewers maintained greater physical distance, demonstrated less eye contact, and administered shorter interviews when interacting with Black (as opposed to White) interviewees. Milgram, Mann, and Harter (1965) showed that stamped envelopes left in various public places (“lost letters”) were more likely to be mailed (by the passersby who found them) the more favorable were public attitudes toward the addressee organizations. Gaertner and Bickman (1971) developed an effective telephone version of the Milgram et al. lost-letter technique, showing that it plausibly assessed prejudice toward Blacks. Porter, Geis, and Jennings-Walstedt (1983) showed that greater use of head-of-table seating as an indicator of leadership for male than female stimulus persons provided an indirect measure of gender stereotyping. J. D. Johnson, Jackson, and Gatto (in press) similarly reported an indirect measure of race stereotyping in the form of greater influence by damaging inadmissible evidence for Black than White defendants in a simulated trial. Campbell, Kruskal, and Wallace (1966) observed spontaneous seating aggregation by race in a large classroom, suggesting that spatial proximity can serve as an indirect indicator of racial attitudes. Greenwald and Schuh (in press) developed a citation analog of the Campbell et al. (1966) aggregation measure, showing that scientific citations aggregate along lines of author ethnicity (Jewish and non- Jewish). — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition, 266

Categorization

• SHARE: The ‘lost letters’ technique and citation-aggregation along ethnicity lines are narrow, delightful findings worth sending to someone specifically tracking measurement history in implicit cognition.
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the reader’s purpose: these are early implicit (non-professed) bias measures that predate and parallel the group-defense mechanisms catalogued across the MOC.