Measuring Automatic Cognition: Advancing Dual-Process Research in Sociology

Abstract

Dual-process models are increasingly popular in sociology as a framework for theorizing the role of automatic cognition in shaping social behavior. However, empirical studies using dual-process models often rely on ad hoc measures such as forced-choice surveys, observation, and interviews whose relationships to underlying cognitive processes are not fully established. In this article, we advance dual-process research in sociology by (1) proposing criteria for measuring automatic cognition, and (2) assessing the empirical performance of two popular measures of automatic cognition developed by psychologists. We compare the ability of the Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT), the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), and traditional forced-choice measures to predict process-pure estimates of automatic influences on individuals’ behavior during a survey task. Results from three studies focusing on politics, morality, and racial attitudes suggest the AMP provides the most valid and consistent measure of automatic cognitive processes. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for sociological practice.

The impact of classroom, school, neighborhood, and institutional factors on teachers’ expectations

“…In that sense, we add to the literature on potential sources of inaccuracy in teachers' assessments. The objectives of this paper were hereby: providing an extensive literature review on research discussing the (possible) relevance of contexts for teacher assessments, introducing a theoretical dual -process model (Lizardo et al 2016, Miles et al 2019, Vaisey 2009) that allows to formulate hypotheses on the simultaneous influence of contexts, and empirically assessing the separate and combined relevance of several contexts on teachers' expectations of elementary school students in Germany. The contextual levels that we focused on were the classroom, the school, the neighborhood and the level of institutions.…”

“…Theoretically, we provide a dual-process explanation (Kroneberg and Kalter 2012, Lizardo, Mowry, Sepulvado et al 2016, Miles, Charron-Chénier and Schleifer 2019, Vaisey 2009) of how educational contexts on different levels jointly affect elementary school teachers' expectations of their students. We test our hypotheses empirically by using data from the German National Educational Panel Study .…”

“…To provide a more comprehensive framework for the explanation of educational context effects on teachers' assessments, we argue that it is useful to draw on a dual-process approach (Lizardo et al 2016, Miles et al 2019, Vaisey 2009). The crucial assumption of dual-process models is that individuals deal with information along a continuum at the ends of which we find automatic-spontaneous processing on the one hand, and rationalcalculating processing on the other hand.…”

“…Consequently, future studies should apply recent progress in the measurement of automatic cognition (Miles et al 2019) to the subject matter of teachers' assessments and their dependence from mutually enforcing educational contexts. Second, due to data limitations, we have only been able to measure variables on the school level but not to model schools as a distinct level of analysis separate from neighborhoods.…”

Religion Imagined: The Conceptual Substructures of American Religious Understandings

“…A growing interest in cognition has helped with these issues by introducing "dual-process models," which analytically distinguish unconscious and automatic "practical" cognitions from conscious and deliberative "discursive" cognitions (Haidt 2006;Vaisey 2008Vaisey , 2009). However, these remain frameworks for thinking about cognitive processes rather than specific approaches to analysis, and they present several additional puzzles (Lizardo et al 2016;Miles, Charron-Ch enier, and Schleifer 2019;Moore 2017).…”