Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: Small effect sizes of unknown societal significance

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Volumn 108, Issue 4, 2015, Pages 562-571

  Oswald, Frederick L ^a   Mitchell, Gregory ^b   Blanton, Hart ^c   Jaccard, James ^d   Tetlock, Philip E ^e  

^a RICE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT   (United States)

^d NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^e UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Discrimination; Implicit association test; Implicit social cognition; Predictive validity; Prejudice

Indexed keywords

ASSOCIATION; HUMAN; META ANALYSIS (TOPIC); NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST; PSYCHOLOGY; RACISM; STATISTICAL ANALYSIS; STATISTICS AND NUMERICAL DATA;

ASSOCIATION; DATA INTERPRETATION, STATISTICAL; HUMANS; META-ANALYSIS AS TOPIC; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS; RACISM;

EID: 84926376497     PISSN: 00223514     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000023     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. Abelson, R. P. (1985). A variance explanation paradox: When a little is a lot. Psychological Bulletin , 97,129-133. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.97.1.129
2. Amodio, D. M., & Devine, P. G. (2006). Stereotyping and evaluation in implicit race bias: Evidence for independent constructs and unique effects on behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 652-661. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.4.652
3. Ashburn-Nardo, L., Knowles, M. L., & Monteith, M. J. (2003). Black Americans' implicit racial associations and their implications for intergroup judgment. Social Cognition, 21, 61-87.
4. Avenanti, A., Sirigu, A., & Aglioti, S. M. (2010). Racial bias reduces empathic sensorimotor resonance with other-race pain. Current Biology, 20, 1018-1022.
5. Biernat, M., Collins, E. C., Katzarska-Miller, I., & Thompson, E. R. (2009). Race-based shifting standards and racial discrimination. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 16-28.
6. Blanton, H., & Jaccard, J. (2006). Arbitrary metrics in psychology. American Psychologist, 61, 27-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.61 .1.27
7. Blanton, H., & Jaccard, J. (2008). Representing versus generalizing: Two approaches to external validity and their implications for the study of prejudice. Psychological Inquiry, 19, 99-105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10478400802049811
8. Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Burrows, C. (2015). Implications of the Implicit Association Test D-Transformation for Psychological Assessment. Assessment. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1073191114551382
9. Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., Christie, C., & Gonzales, P. M. (2007). Plausible assumptions, questionable assumptions and post hoc rationalizations: Will the real IAT, please stand up? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 399-409. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.10.019
10. Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., Strauts, E., Mitchell, G., & Tetlock, P. E. (2015). Toward a meaningful metric of implicit prejudice. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037a0038379
11. Blanton, H., & Mitchell, G. (2011). Reassessing the predictive validity of the IAT II: Reanalysis of Heider & Skowronski (2007). North American Journal of Psychology, 13, 99-106.
12. Bobko, P., & Roth, P. L. (2004). The four-fifths rule for assessing adverse impact: An arithmetic, intuitive, and logical analysis of the rule and implications for future research and practice. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 23, 177-198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0742-7301(04)23004-3
13. Carney, D. R. (2006). The faces of prejudice: On the malleability of the attitude-behavior link. Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University.
14. Carney, D. R., Olson, K. R., Banaji, M. R., & Mendes, W. B. (2006). The faces of race-bias: Awareness of racial cues moderates the relation between bias and in-group facial mimicry. Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University.
15. Chugh, D. (2004). Societal and managerial implications of implicit social cognition: Why milliseconds matter. Social Justice Research, 17, 203-222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/B:SORE.0000027410.26010.40
16. Cunningham, W. A., Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Gatenby, J. C., Gore, J. C., & Banaji, M. R. (2004). Separable neural components in the processing of Black and White faces. Psychological Science, 15, 806-813.
17. Derous, E., Ryan, A. M., & Serlie, A. W. (2014). Double jeopardy upon resumé screening: When Achmed is less employable than Aïsha. Personnel Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/peps.12078
18. Florack, A., Scarabis, M., & Bless, H. (2001). Der Einfluß wahrgenommener Bedrohung auf die Nutzung automatischer Assoziationen bei der Personenbeurteilung. Zeitschrift Für Sozialpsychologie, 32, 249-259.
19. Gawronski, B., Geschke, D., & Banse, R. (2003). Implicit bias in impression formation: Associations influence the construal of individuating information. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 573-589.
20. Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York, NY: Little, Brown.
21. Glaser, J., & Knowles, E. D. (2008). Implicit motivation to control prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 164-172.
22. Green, A. R., Carney, D. R., Pallin, D. J., Ngo, L. H., Raymond, K. L., Iezzoni, L. I., & Banaji, M. R. (2007). The presence of implicit bias in physicians and its prediction of thrombolysis decisions for Black and White patients. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22, 1231-1238.
23. Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2015). Statistically small effects of the Implicit Association Test can have societally large effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108, 553-561. http://dx .doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000016
24. Greenwald, A. G., & Krieger, L. H. (2006). Implicit bias: Scientific foundations. California Law Review, 94, 945-967. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20439056
25. Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.
26. Greenwald, A. G., & Pettigrew, T. F. (2014). With malice toward none and charity for some: Ingroup favoritism enables discrimination. American Psychologist, 69, 669-684.
27. Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., & Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 17-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0015575
28. He, Y., Johnson, M. K., Dovidio, J. F., & McCarthy, G. (2009). The relation of race-related implicit associations and scalp-recorded neural activity evoked by faces from different races. Social Neuroscience, 4, 426-442.
29. Hedges, L. V., Tipton, E., & Johnson, M. C. (2010). Robust variance estimation in meta-regression with dependent effect size estimates. Research Synthesis Methods, 1, 39-65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.5
30. Heider, J. D., & Skowronski, J. J. (2007). Improving the predictive validity of the Implicit Association Test. North American Journal of Psychology, 9, 53-76.
31. Hofmann, W., Gschwendner, T., Castelli, L., & Schmitt, M. (2008). Implicit and explicit attitudes and interracial interaction: The moderating role of situationally available control resources. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 11, 69 -87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368430207084847
32. Hough, L. M., Oswald, F. L., & Ployhart, R. E. (2001). Determinants, detection, and amelioration of adverse impact in personnel selection procedures: Issues, evidence, and lessons learned. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 9, 152-194. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-2389.00171
33. Hugenberg, K., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2003). Facing prejudice: Implicit prejudice and the perception of facial threat. Psychological Science, 14, 640-643.
34. Hugenberg, K., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2004). Ambiguity in social categorization: The role of prejudice and facial affect in race categorization. Psychological Science, 15, 342-345.
35. Hughes, J., & Bigler, R. S. (2011). Predictors of African American and European American adolescents' endorsement of race-conscious social policies. Developmental Psychology, 47, 479-492.
36. Jaccard, J. (1998). Interaction effects in factorial analysis of variance. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
37. Jones v. City of Boston, 752 F. 3d 38 (1st Cir. 2014).
38. Kang, J., Dasgupta, N., Yogeeswaran, K., & Blasi, G. (2010). Are ideal litigators white? Measuring the myth of colorblindness. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 7, 886-915.
39. Korn, H., Johnson, M. A., & Chun, M. M. (2012). Neurolaw: Differential brain activity for Black and White faces predicts damage awards in hypothetical employment discrimination cases. Social Neuroscience, 7, 398-409.
40. Landy, F. (2008). Stereotypes, bias and personnel decisions: Strange and stranger. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 1, 379-392. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2008.00071.x
41. Levinson, J., Huijin, C., & Young, D. M. (2010). Guilty by implicit bias: The guilty/not guilty implicit association test. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 8, 187-208.
42. Livingston, R. W. (2002). Bias in the absence of malice: The paradox of unintentional deliberative discrimination. Unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
43. Ma-Kellams, C., Spencer-Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2011). I am against us? Unpacking cultural differences in ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 15-27.
44. Maner, J. K., Kenrick, D. T., Neuberg, S. L., Becker, D. V., Robertson, T., Hofer, B., . . . Schaller, M. (2005). Functional projection: How fundamental social motives can bias interpersonal perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 63-78.
45. McConnell, A. R., & Leibold, J. M. (2001). Relations among the Implicit Association Test, discriminatory behavior, and explicit measures of racial attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37435-442. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jesp.2000.1470
46. McDaniel, M. A., Kepes, S., & Banks, G. C. (2011). The Uniform Guidelines are a detriment to the field of personnel selection. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 4, 494-514. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2011.01382.x
47. Mitchell, G., & Tetlock, P. E. (in press). Popularity as a poor proxy for utility: The case of implicit prejudice. In S. O. Lilienfeld & I. Waldman (Eds.), Psychological science under scrutiny: Recent challenges and proposed solutions. New York NY: Wiley.
48. Norton, E. C., Wang, H., & Ai, C. (2004). Computing interaction effects and standard errors in logit and probit models. The Stata Journal, 4, 154-167.
49. Oswald, F. L., Mitchell, G., Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Tetlock, P. E. (2013). Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: A meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 171-192. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0032734
50. Peduzzi, P. N., Detre, K. M., & Chan, Y.-K. (1983). Upper and lower bounds for correlations in 2 _ 2 tables-Revisited. Journal of Chronic Diseases, 36, 491-496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0021-9681(83)90124-8
51. Pérez, E. O. (2010). Explicit evidence on the import of implicit attitudes: The IAT and immigration policy judgments. Political Behavior, 32, 517-545.
52. Perugini, M., O'Gorman, R., & Prestwich, A. (2007). An ontological test of the IAT: Self-activation can increase predictive validity. Experimental Psychology, 54, 134-147.
53. Phelps, E. A., O'Conner, K. J., Cunningham, W. A., Funayama, E. S., Gatenby, J. C., Gore, J. C., & Banaji, M. R. (2000). Performance on indirect measures of race evaluation predicts amygdala activation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 1-10.
54. Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (1992). When small effects are impressive. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 160-164. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.160
55. Prestwich, A., Kenworthy, J. B., Wilson, M., & Kwan-Tat, N. (2008). Differential relations between two types of contact and implicit and explicit racial attitudes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 575-588.
56. Rachlinski, J. J., Johnson, S. L., Wistrich, A. J., & Guthrie, C. (2009). Does unconscious racial bias affect trial judges? Notre Dame Law Review, 84, 1195-1246.
57. Richeson, J. A., Baird, A. A., Gordon, H. L., Heatherton, T. F, Wyland, C. L., Trawalter, S., & Shelton, J. N. (2003). An fMRI examination of the impact of interracial contact on executive function. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 1323-1328.
58. Richeson, J. A., & Shelton, J. N. (2003). When prejudice doesn't pay: Effects of interracial contact on executive function. Psychological Science, 14, 287-290.
59. Rooth, D.-O. (2010). Automatic associations and discrimination in hiring: Real world evidence. Labour Economics, 17, 523-534.
60. Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1982). A simple, general purpose display of magnitude of experimental effect. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 166-169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.2.166
61. Rosnow, R. L., & Rosenthal, R. (1989). Statistical procedures and the justification of knowledge in psychological science. American Psychologist, 44, 1276-1284. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.10.1276
62. Rudman, L. A., & Ashmore, R. D. (2007). Discrimination and the Implicit Association Test. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 10, 359-372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368430207078696
63. Rudman, L. A., & Lee, M. R. (2002). Implicit and explicit consequences of exposure to violent and misogynous rap music. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 5, 133-150.
64. Sabin, J. A., Rivara, F. P., & Greenwald, A. G. (2008). Physician implicit attitudes and stereotypes about race and quality of medical care. Medical Care, 46, 678-685.
65. Sargent, M. J., & Theil, A. (2001). When do implicit racial attitudes predict behavior? On the moderating role of attributional ambiguity. Unpublished manuscript, Bates College.
66. Sekaquaptewa, D., Espinoza, P., Thompson, M., Vargas, P., & von Hippel, W. (2003). Stereotypic explanatory bias: Implicit stereotyping as a predictor of discrimination. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 75-82.
67. Shelton, J. N., Richeson, J. A., Salvatore, J., & Trawalter, S. (2005). Ironic effects of racial bias during interracial interactions. Psychological Science, 16, 397-402. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01547.x
68. Sibley, C. G., Liu, J. H., & Khan, S. S. (2010). Implicit representations of ethnicity and nationhood in New Zealand: A function of symbolic or resource-specific policy attitudes? Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 10, 23-46.
69. Spicer, C. V., & Monteith, M. J. (2001). Implicit outgroup favoritism among African Americans and vulnerability to stereotype threat. Unpublished manuscript.
70. Stanley, D. A., Sokol-Hessner, P., Banaji, M. R., & Phelps, E. A. (2011). Implicit race attitudes predict trustworthiness judgments and economic trust decisions. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, 7710-7775.
71. Stepanikova, I., Triplett, J., & Simpson, B. (2011). Implicit racial bias and prosocial behavior. Social Science Research, 40, 1186-1195.
72. Sue, D. W. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
73. Tetlock, P. E., & Mitchell, G. (2009). Implicit bias and accountability systems: What must organizations do to prevent discrimination? Research in Organizational Behavior, 29, 3-38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2009.10.002
74. Tuttle, K. M. K. (2009). Implicit racial attitudes and law enforcement shooting decisions. Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan.
75. Vanman, E. J., Saltz, J. L., Nathan, L. R., & Warren, J. A. (2004). Racial discrimination by low-prejudiced whites. Facial movements as implicit measures of attitudes related to behavior. Psychological Science, 15, 711-714. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00746.x
76. Vezzali, L., & Giovannini, D. (2011). Intergroup contact and reduction of explicit and implicit prejudice toward immigrants: A study with Italian businessmen owning small and medium enterprises. Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 45, 213-222.
77. Warrens, M. J. (2008). On association coefficients for 2_2 tables and properties that do not depend on the marginal distributions. Psychometrika, 73, 777-789. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11336-008-9070-3
78. Yeaton, W. H., & Sechrest, L. (1981). Meaningful measures of effect. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 49, 766-767. http://dx .doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.49.5.766
79. Ziegert, J. C., & Hanges, P. J. (2005). Employment discrimination: The role of implicit attitudes, motivation, and a climate for racial bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 554-562.