Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: III. A Process-Level Examination of Changes in Implicit Preferences

Implicit bias change was initially assumed to reflect changes in associations, but subsequent research demonstrated that implicit bias change can also reflect changes in control-oriented processes that constrain the expression of associations. The present research examines the process-level effects of 17 different implicit bias-reduction interventions and one sham intervention by analyzing data from more than 20,000 participants who completed an intervention condition or a baseline control condition followed by a race Implicit Association Test (IAT). To identify the processes influenced by each intervention, we applied the Quadruple process model to participants’ IAT responses then meta-analyzed parameter estimates according to a taxonomy of interventions based on shared features. Interventions that relied on counterstereotypic exemplars or strategies to override biases influenced both associations and control-oriented processes, whereas interventions that relied on evaluative conditioning influenced only control-oriented processes. In contrast, interventions that focused on egalitarian values, perspective taking, or emotion had no reliable influence on any of the processes examined. When interventions did change associations, they were much more likely to reduce positive White associations than negative Black associations. The present research extends upon traditional dual-process perspectives by identifying robust intervention effects on response biases. These findings connect features of interventions with changes in the processes underlying implicit bias.