Relations among the Implicit Association Test, Discriminatory Behavior, and Explicit Measures of Racial Attitudes

Heretofore, no research has shown that meaningful variability on the Implicit Association Test (IAT) relates to intergroup discrimination or to explicit measures of prejudice. In the current study, White undergraduates interacted separately with White and Black experimenters, and their behavior during these social interactions was assessed by trained judges and by the experimenters themselves. The participants also completed explicit measures of racial prejudice and a race IAT. As predicted, those who revealed stronger negative attitudes toward Blacks (vs Whites) on the IAT had more negative social interactions with a Black (vs a White) experimenter and reported relatively more negative Black prejudices on explicit measures. The implications of these results for the IAT and its relations to intergroup discrimination and to explicit measures of attitudes are discussed.