The role of self-involvement in shifting IAT effects

Exp Psychol. 2012;59(6):348-54. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000163.

Abstract

Explicit measures can be affected by self-involvement in processing of a message (Johnson & Eagly, 1989). Here, we show that self-involvement in a counter-stereotypical message also influences implicit measures such as the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). In our study, racial attitudes changed only after reading a counter-stereotypical scenario in which participants were asked to imagine themselves as victims of an assault as opposed to simply imagine an assault to a person. This shift did not depend on evaluative instructions and it was transient as it was no longer present after 1 week. These results suggest that the self-involvement might be an important factor in shifting implicit measures.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Attitude
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Prejudice / psychology*
  • Race Relations / psychology*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Self Concept*
  • Social Identification*
  • Stereotyping*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires / standards*
  • Young Adult