Year

2016

Season

Spring

Degree Type

Honors Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Name

Honors in the Major

First Advisor

Dr. Curtis Phills

Second Advisor

Dr. Lori Lange

Third Advisor

LouAnne B. Hawkins

Abstract

My research investigated the effectiveness of a prejudice reduction method in which participants are trained to associate positive or negative concepts with a target group. By training participants to associate positive concepts with a social group such as Blacks, this technique may be used to reduce participants’ implicit prejudice toward that group (Olson & Fazio, 2006). I examined the effectiveness and limitations of an evaluative training technique by investigating how training in associating positive concepts with Blacks would influence identification and potential individual difference moderators of the impact of evaluative training on prejudice reduction and identification. Two hundred and eighty-four participants completed an evaluative training task, self-Black associations IAT, race IAT, and personality scales. Results demonstrated that participants who received training to associate positive concepts with Blacks had lower implicit prejudice. A mediational analysis found increases in self-association or identification with Blacks were caused by lower implicit prejudice. None of the individual difference moderators significantly moderated the effect of evaluative training on implicit prejudice or identification. Future studies should examine the strength of evaluative training in two important ways: 1) evaluative training’s influence on behavior and 2) the endurance of evaluative training’s resulting prejudice change and identification. Understanding its influence on behavior or long-term endurance of the prejudice change and identification would strengthen the claim of evaluative training as an effective method of prejudice reduction.

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS