Implicit Racial Preferences Essay

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a relationship between implicit racial preferences and explicit racial attitudes/personal experiences exists. A weak positive correlation between the IAT and survey was predicted, due to previous studies’ positive correlations, but also due to the mitigating factor of the sensitive topic potentially yielding inaccurate survey responses. My results did not follow the previous studies’ findings, as there was no correlation between the IAT results and survey responses, but Greenwald et al.’s meta-analysis (2009) did caution that more sensitive topics would have less predictive validity. Baron et al. (2006) examined the relationship between implicit race preferences and explicit race attitudes at various ages (6, 10 and adulthood) to understand the origins of implicit racial preferences. They found that implicit Pro-White Anti-Black preferences develop as early as age six and their explicit racial attitudes correlate accordingly. It was also concluded that all age groups exhibited an implicit preference towards the expected bias, but, by the age of 10 and onwards, participants expressed a more egalitarian attitude when

I found that my survey questions had loaded questions that would most likely lead to the motivational bias to select the socially desirable response. There were three questions in particular that every participant selected the unexpected bias response. The questions contained underlying topics such as equality or how African-Americans impact society. To avoid loaded questions, I should have had more specific questions that were concise and perhaps more situational. I also noticed that I used extreme absolutes when creating the survey which in turn has participants more prone to selecting the unexpected bias, given that the statement was ultimately a