Abstract
The implicit association test (IAT) measures bias towards often controversial topics (e.g., race, religion), while newspapers typically take strong positive/negative stances on such issues. In a pre-registered study, we developed and administered an immigration IAT to readers of the Daily Mail (a typically anti-immigration publication) and the Guardian (a typically pro-immigration publication) newspapers. IAT materials were constructed based on co-occurrence frequencies from each newspapers’ website for immigration-related terms (migrant/immigrant) and positive/negative attributes (skilled/unskilled). Target stimuli showed stronger negative associations with immigration concepts in the Daily Mail compared to the Guardian, and stronger positive associations in the Guardian corpus compared to the Daily Mail corpus. Consistent with these linguistic distributional differences, Daily Mail readers exhibited a larger IAT bias, revealing stronger negative associations to immigration concepts compared to Guardian readers. This difference in overall bias was not fully explained by other variables, and raises the possibility that exposure to biased language contributes to biased implicit attitudes.
Highlights
Janet is less likely to be called for an interview than John
We explored if broader political party preference was associated with implicit bias scores
Adding Age as a predictor to a model containing Newspaper did provide for better overall model fit – R2 = 0.06, F(2, 157) = 5.02, p = 0.008, with older ages associated with an increase in bias scores b = 0.005, t(157) = 2.528, p = 0.012
Summary
Janet is less likely to be called for an interview than John. Jamal is less likely to get a job than James. You are more likely to experience a negative outcome in a range of life scenarios if you are female, or overweight, or have a stereotypical “black” first name. If this has happened to you, you may have been the victim of implicit bias. Biased attitudes and prejudicial decision making have wide-ranging, negative effects, and even seemingly inconsequential levels of bias can have a dramatic impact on individual and societallevel outcomes. For any marginalized group the implicit attitudes of others can potentially have a profound impact on their chances of success
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