Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I make use of newly available data from the Implicit Associations Test to explore the importance of implicit attitudes about gender roles and their relationship with politics and political context.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper will address what the antidiscrimination laws should do to counter the use of automatic stereotypes in employment decisions. One area of particular interest is what legal framework courts should apply to individual disparate treatment claims at the summary judgment stage. The Fourth and Ninth Circuits permit a plaintiff claiming employment discrimination to avoid a defendant’s motion for summary judgment by producing evidence that a forbidden characteristic at least played a role in the decision. This framework is a step towards directly rooting out implicit bias by allowing a plaintiff to articulate a mixed motive case and support it with rather minimal evidence that a forbidden characteristic played a role in the decision at least at the summary judgment stage.

In this paper, I will argue, however, that the use of the motivating factor framework at summary judgment actually may have a greater, though more indirect, effect on the implicit biases of decision-makers. Specifically, employers will be forced to think about what their motives really are when making a decision. Psychological research has shown that increased attention to decision-making reasons can have a positive effect on the recognition that automatic stereotypes may be playing a role in a particular decision; thus, forcing employers to afford more attention to the reasons behind their employment decisions is a promising step in rooting out implicit bias.

Publication Type: Poster Paper
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Racial inequality in jury selection has become a topic of rising interest. Two recent Supreme Court decisions, Miller-el v. Dretke and Snyder v. Louisiana, have reaffirmed the unconstitutionality of race-based exclusions during jury selection, underscoring a prominent issue of contemporary racial inequality in the American trial system. Unconscious, automatic racial bias represents perhaps the most invidious form of bias in this context, as its effect goes undetected, yet nonetheless is capable of contributing to race-based exclusions. The social dynamic of voir dire mirrors conditions under which theory suggests perception and decision making processes are highly susceptible to the influence of implicit racial bias.
This paper presents the results of the first systematic empirical research to directly examine the role of implicit racial bias in the exercise of peremptory challenges. Findings from this experimental work provide evidence that implicit bias is associated with negative perceptions and evaluations of Black (compared with White) prospective jurors, and are related to greater tendencies to exclude Black individuals. In addition, an important mediating relationship was also discovered. More specifically, while the general form of implicit racial stereotyping (e.g., Black individuals as uneducated, poor) was related to greater tendency to exclude Black jurors, racial stereotyping specific to Black individuals within the context of a legal trial (e.g., Blacks as acquittal prone; racial minority jurors as lenient toward same-race defendants) was found to be the primary driving force behind this effect, and it served to mediate the aforementioned relationship. Implications of the new findings are discussed.

Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Abstract: When it comes to racial issues, Americans are often suspected of a “split personality” holding different explicit and implicit attitudes. This study goes one step further and suggests that implicit racial attitudes may be split: Implicit word associations (e.g., Fazio et al. 1995, Greenwald et al. 1998) may betray a culturally shared anti-Black bias, even when people experience an implicit sense of closeness toward Blacks.
The study combines a representative RDD-telephone survey (n=1,200) with an online reaction time study (n=1,341) on affirmative action, government aid to Blacks, and reparations for slavery. The telephone survey serves as a baseline for comparison to evaluate the validity of online study. The online study allows comparing explicit racial attitudes to the two types of implicit racial attitudes. Culturally shared implicit word associations are measured using a subliminal priming procedure (Fazio et al. 1995). Implicit closeness to Blacks is conceptualized as cognitive overlap between an individual’s self-concept and that individual’s mental representation of African Americans as a group. It is measured using a timed self-rating task developed by Aron et al. (1991).
The results suggest that implicit closeness toward Blacks plays a powerful and consistent role in predicting support for a broad range of pro-Black policies. In contrast, implicit word associations display a powerful pro-White and anti-Black bias across all racial and ethnic groups. Greater anti-Black word-association bias is associated with greater levels of explicit attitude inconsistency. Political and methodological implications are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Health information in cigarette advertising is important because of its potential to impact consumers’ smoking-related perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors. This study analyzed implicit health information in cigarette magazine ads —“light” cigarette, cigarette pack color, verbal and visual health cues, cigarette portrayals, and human model-cigarette interaction—and changes in the use of those cues in ads across the five distinct smoking eras covering the years, 1954-2003. Analysis of 1,198 cigarette advertisements collected through multistage systematic random sampling found that the level of implicit health information in post-Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) era ads is similar to the level in ads from early smoking eras. Specifically, “light” cigarettes were frequently promoted, and presence of light colors in cigarette packs was dominant after the pro-broadcast ban era. Impressionistic verbal health cues (e.g., soft, mild, and refreshing) were more frequently used in post-MSA era ads than in pre-MSA era ads. Most notably, a majority of the cigarette ads portrayed models smoking, lighting, or offering a cigarette to others. The potential impact of implicit health information is discussed in the contexts of social cognition and Social Cognitive Theory. We argue that government prohibition against the use of misleading terms such as "light", "mild" or "low-tar” should be interpreted more broadly to include cigarette pack color, visual imagery of pure scenes, cigarette portrayals, and model interaction with cigarettes in advertisements.