The structure of prejudice: associative strength as a determinant of stereotype endorsement

Previous research obtained inconsistent findings as to whether implicit and explicit measures of prejudice are related. According to our view, some of these inconsistencies are due to whether implicit measures assess exclusiv ely the strength of association between the social category and the evaluat ion or the activation of the social category in addition. Derived from rece nt theorizing we suggest that it is especially associative strength between the social category and its evaluation that determines the endorsement of prejudice assessed in explicit measures. To test this assumption we used th e Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess the associative strength of Ger man students' prejudice towards Turkish people and the Blatant-and-Subtle-P rejudice-Scale (BS scale) as an explicit measure of prejudice. We obtained evidence for prejudice at a relative level in that the category of Turks wa s more closely associated with a negative evaluation and the category of Ge rmans more closely associated with a positive evaluation. In line with our assumptions the implicit measure was correlated with the explicit measure i n that the stronger the representation of Turks was associated with a negat ive evaluation the more prejudiced individuals responded in the explicit pr ejudice measure. Using a trait assignment technique, we found that neither associative strength nor the endorsement of the prejudice in the explicit m easure were related to the contents of the stereotype. Copyright (C) 2001 J ohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd.