Subliminal racial priming shifts judgments even among people low in prejudice

Evidence

A landmark study demonstrated that people make preconscious, automatic stereotypic associations to race categories (Devine, 1989). Whites subliminally primed with black stereotypic words (black, lazy, athletic) subsequently rated a race-neutral person, who behaved ambiguously, as more (stereotypically) hostile, regardless of self-reported prejudice. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 299

A landmark study demonstrated that people make preconscious, automatic stereotypic associations to race categories (Devine, 1989). Whites subliminally primed with black stereotypic words (black, lazy, athletic) subsequently rated a race-neutral person, who behaved ambiguously, as more (stereotypically) hostile, regardless of self-reported prejudice. The now widelyused Implicit Associations Test complements these results (for a review, see Greenwald et al., 2002). The IAT pairs category-relevant cues (e.g., stereotypically black or white names, black or white faces) with positive and negative terms. People more rapidly associate positive terms with higher-status groups (and sometimes ingroups) but more negative terms with lower-status groups (and sometimes outgroups). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 299

Categorization

• XREF: Devine’s finding that even low-prejudice people show automatic stereotype activation is a canonical result. — connects to: Empathic people are more susceptible to subliminal cues and influence — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 945; Null racial-priming results may reflect weak messages rather than real effects. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 26; Mere exposure to subliminal affects can transfer value to neutral stimuli via misattribution — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 105 (+1 more)
• SEED: The gap between self-reported prejudice and automatic bias is rich material for a piece about why good intentions fail.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 299