Implicit and Explicit Measures of Prejudice

Abstract

Unfortunately, prejudice continues to be a major problem across society. Research on prejudice is difficult because people are often motivated to avoid expressing prejudice because it is typically not socially accepted to express prejudicial attitudes and behaviors. Explicit measures of prejudice are typically paper and pencil measures where people know that the goal of the measure is to gauge their level of prejudice. Consequently, these measures are subject to motivational pressures with the consequence that people's responses may reflect both their prejudicial attitudes and their motivations to control the expression of those attitudes. Implicit measures were developed a little over a quarter of a century ago. Implicit measures attempt to measure prejudicial attitudes and beliefs without participants being aware that their prejudice is being measured. Consequently, these measures avoid motivational pressures to mask prejudicial responses.