On the malleability of automatic attitudes: Combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals

Two experiments examined whether exposure to pictures of admired and dislik ed exemplars can reduce automatic preference for White over Black Americans and younger over older people. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to either admired Black and disliked White individuals, disliked Black and admired White individuals, or nonracial exemplars. Immediately after exempl ar exposure and 24 hr later, they completed an Implicit Association Test th at assessed automatic racial attitudes and 2 explicit attitude measures. Re sults revealed that exposure to admired Black and disliked White exemplars significantly weakened automatic pro-White attitudes for 24 hr beyond the t reatment but did not affect explicit racial attitudes. Experiment 2 provide d a replication using automatic age-related attitudes. Together, these stud ies provide a strategy that attempts to change the social context and, thro ugh it, to reduce automatic prejudice and preference.