An implicit association test was administered to participants who were primed with either famous European American faces or famous African American faces. Those primed with African American faces reported significantly higher automatic preference for African Americans compared to those primed with European American faces. This finding contradicts previous research finding a preference for European Americans and suggests attitudes may have changed, warranting further research into current racial preferences and the possibility of a stimulus familiarity confound.

1. Running head: CURRENTAUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES
Automatic Preferences for African Americans
Kyle Barrett
PSY 290
An implicit association test regarding automatic racial preference was distributed
online to participants divided into two initial conditions. Participants were primed
with famous European American faces in the first condition, while participants in
the second condition were primed with famous African American faces. Those
who were placed in the second condition reported significantly higher automatic
preference for African Americans than those who were primed with European
American faces. These findings date previous research on the subject, and
suggest that further research is needed to assess the possibly changing nature
of current-day automatic racial preferences.

2. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 2
Introduction
Racial prejudice within the United States is a highly debated and
controversial issue. Over the last sixty years, an extensive body of research has
formed on the subject with various results. In 1997, nation-wide surveys were
conducted on racism, and found that it had been steadily declining since the
American Civil Rights Movement in the fifties (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1997).
The explicit nature of these surveysand notion of social desirability, however,
cast doubts upon the authenticity of such findings. In the following years after the
study, new findings were collected via the Implicit Association Test (IAT). These
findings held that racial prejudice was still common, as the IAT was able to
measure unconscious attitudes beyond participants’ control or immediate
awareness(Crosby, Bromley, & Saxe, 1980).
The IAT is a relatively new measure andmultiple studies have been
conducted on assessing the test’s effectiveness on different levels- often in
comparison to explicit test measures such assurveys. The results indicate a fairly
high degree of credibility for the IAT. Not only has it been found as a reliably valid
measure for attitudinal relationships between concepts(Greenwald, McGhee, &
Schwartz, 1998), but it has specifically been found as an effective measure for
implicit racial attitudes (Banaji & Greenwald, 1995). Much of the doubts regarding
the IAT’s ability to correctly asses racialprejudicehave been put to rest, as the
test has beenproven to account for most extraneous variables along with other
proposed explanations(Dasgupta, Greenwald, Banaji, 2000). Even further
research with the IAT shows that not only can the test correctly detectracially

3. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 3
related attitudes, but that it can also show how these attitudes are being
manipulated (Dasgupta, Greenwald, 2001).
This experiment was conducted with the intention of confirming the
findings of previous research in order to gain a greater understanding of the
Implicit Association Test and the experimental process. The study’s results,
however, were found to be divergent from previous research results. Rather than
indicating a prevalent European American preference, as found with previous
research, this study indicates a prevalent African American preference for those
who were primed with African American Faces.Much of the research done on
implicit associations and racism was conducted in the late 1990’s (Dasgupta,
Greenwald, Banaji, 2000) and, although this study alone is not enough to
discount those before it, it does suggest that that the nature of this relationship
may have possibly changed since its initial unearthing. Further research is
needed to assess current-day racial preferences, as a possible change in racial
attitudes due to a fluctuating socioeconomic and political climate cannot be
discounted.
Methods
Participants
The participants were 24 research methods students at Arizona State University
and 42 additional participants that those students recruited, making 66
participants in total. Students were required to take IAT online. They were then
requested to send out the test link to various acquaintances in order to gain

4. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 4
additional data. Age and sex were discounted within the final results, as too few
participants responded to these questions to provide significant data.
Materials
All participants received one of the two testing conditions online. In the
European American priming condition, participants were shown the faces of and
asked to identify: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Katie Couric, John
Stewart, and Ellen Degenerous. Participants in the African American priming
condition were shown the faces of and asked to identify: Barack Obama, Michelle
Obama, Colin Powell, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Cosby, and Oprah Winfrey. The
Implicit Association Test was hosted on a separate, external website.
Participants recorded their results by selecting their corresponding test results
from the IAT, indicating that they had either a strong, moderate, slight, or little to
no preference for European/African Americans. See Appendix B further details.
Procedure and Design
Although the two test forms were homogenous, the test itself was
distributed through two separate links, one for student data, and the other for the
convenient sample data.Before participants took the IAT, they were asked to
complete an approximately ten-minute long thought suppression study for a
separate class experiment.Participants were then presented with their
corresponding priming conditions and given a link to take the racial preference
IAT on a separate site. Participants were then asked to report their results for
data collection in order to conclude the experiment.

5. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 3
Results
Participants were tested with the IAT for automatic racial preference and
then asked to record their results in the online experiment. Considerable
amounts of data had to be excluded due to test fatigue and a high drop out rate.
As shown in Appendix A, there is a significant difference reported in
automatic preferences depending on the European American faces or African
American faces priming conditions, with F(1,66)=8.741, p=.004. The participants
who were primed with famous African American faces reported significantly
higher automatic preference for African Americans than those who were primed
with famous European American faces. There was no significant difference
reported in automatic preference for European Americans in either priming
condition.These findings show no indication of an automatic preference for
European Americans, and suggest an overall higher preference for African
Americans within participants.
Discussion
The results from this experiment contradict the initial hypothesis that
looked to confirm previously found racial preferences for European Americans.
Rather, results indicate a significantly higher automatic preference for African
Americans and no significant change in preference for European Americans.
These findings suggest that a possible change in racial attitudes has taken place
over the last decade and that further research may be needed to assess it. An
overall change in racial attitudes is a very real possibility, as a high level of

6. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 6
socioeconomic and political change has taken place within the United States
during recent years, including the election of the first ever African American
president. It should be noted, however, that a social desirability bias may still be
present within this experiment’s design, as participants were asked to self-report
their test results for data collection.
What this study does not address is the concept of stimulus familiarity,
which is a possible measurement confound in the IAT. It suggests that
participants’ results are based off of recognition rather than racial preference.
Although these findings have been weeded out and checked for previous studies
regarding significantly higher European American preference (Dasgupta,
Greenwald, Banaji, 2000), they have not been checked with this study and the
notion of significantly higher African American automatic preference. In order to
build off of the data found in this experiment, a future study should be conducted
with special emphasis on weeding out known extraneous variables and, more
specifically, statistically controlling stimulus familiarity.

7. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 3
References
Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (1995). Implicit gender stereotyping in
judgments of fame.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,68,pp.
181–198.
Crosby, F. J., Bromley, S., & Saxe, L. (1980). Recent unobtrusive studies of
black and whitediscrimination and prejudice: A literature review.
Psychological Bulletin,87,pp. 546 –563.
Dasgupta, N., Greenwald, A. G., 2001. On the malleability of automatic attitudes:
Combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked
individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 81, pp.
800-814.
Dasgupta, N., McGhee, D. E., Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R. (2000). Automatic
preference for White Americans: Eliminating the familiarity explanation.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Vol 36, pp. 316-328.
Greenwald, A.G., Farnham, S.D. (2000). Using Implicit Association Test to
measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Vol 79, pp. 1022-1038.
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. Vol 74, pp. 1464-1480.
Schuman, H., Steeh, C., & Bobo, L. (1997).Racial attitudes in America: Trends
and interpretations.Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

8. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 8
Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure.Journal of Personality
and SocialPsychology, Monographs,9.

9. CURRENT AUTOMATIC RACIAL PREFERENCES 3
Appendix A

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Appendix B

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