Examining the Role of Executive Functioning. in the Implicit Association Test. Raquel Gabbitas. Westminster College

Transcription

1 Executive Functioning 1 Running Head: EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING AND THE IAT Examining the Role of Executive Functioning in the Implicit Association Test Raquel Gabbitas Westminster College

2 Executive Functioning 2 Social issues like racism present a problem in the United States, but racist attitudes are often elusive and difficult to pinpoint. Different psychological measurements have sought to empirically assess the central issues of racism, such as stereotypical behavior and negative implicit feelings (Nosek, 2007; Greenwald, Nosek, & Sriram, 2006; Heider & Skowronski, 2007; Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, in press; Correll, Urland, & Ito, 2006) and these measurements have shown that people display unconscious bias towards perceived outgroups or minorities (Greenwald, Nosek, & Sriram, 2006; Heider & Skowronski, 2007; Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, in press). In order to understand the implicit bias involved in racism it is necessary to differentiate between explicit and implicit cognition: an explicit response occurs when an individual is consciously aware and in control of his/her actions, but with an implicit response there is lack of controllability, awareness, and conscious intention (Nosek, 2007). This lack of awareness may still result in action, however, and can influence individuals decisions with both simple cognitive tasks, as well as critical social decisions (Heider & Skowronski, 2007; Correl, Urland, & Ito, 2006; Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, in press). An individual s ability to engage or disengage from such potentially harmful implicit feelings may be dependent on his/her executive functioning ability (Correll, et. al., 2007). Therefore, it is important to understand the role of executive functioning on implicit bias and how this may influence external actions. Redick and Engle (2006) described executive functioning or executive control as a person s ability to resolve conflict among several potential actions. Individuals that exhibit poor executive functioning may have difficulty controlling negative unconscious or implicit feelings which can result in harmful actions (Correll, Urland, & Ito, 2006). An example of this can be seen with a shoot or no-shoot paradigm in which a

3 Executive Functioning 3 participant must appropriately decide to shoot or not shoot a human target; participants who displayed implicit bias on cognitive tasks were more likely to shoot a black individual (Correll, et. al., 2007). Another study explored the differences between implicit attitudes and executive functioning ability with both civilians and police officers (Correll, et. al., 2007). Although this study did not directly measure executive functioning ability it did demonstrate that even though police officers and civilians exhibited similar social biases, police officers exhibit greater control with shooting decisions and are better able to inhibit actually firing at a target (Correll, et. al., 2007). This demonstrates that executive functioning may play a role in preventing individuals from acting on implicit bias. Since current research acknowledges that implicit attitudes influence external actions (Heider & Skowronski, 2007; Correl, Urland, & Ito, 2006; Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, in press), the extent to which these implicit attitudes are controllable should be further examined. This study will examine how executive functioning ability affects an individual s performance on an implicit attitude measurement. Since implicit attitude tests are being used more and more to understand implicit social attitudes (Hummert, et. al., 2002, Heider & Skowronski, 2007), it is important to know how executive functioning ability influences the way a person regards outgroup members. Understanding a person s ability to inhibit actions, even implicitly, will allow researchers to work towards creating social awareness about issues like prejudice. In the current study, two psychological measurements will be used to assess implicit bias and executive functioning the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Attention Network Test (ANT). The IAT measures a person s underlying feelings about socially relevant topics like race (Greenwald, McGhee, Schwartz, 1998), and the ANT evaluates an individual s executive functioning ability (Fan, et al., 2002).

4 Executive Functioning 4 The implicit examination of social attitudes is one of the main constructs being measured with the IAT and completing the IAT requires executive functioning ability. A participant must pay attention to the presented stimuli, and make decisions about conflicting information. Previous studies have demonstrated that executive functioning is important in decision making (Wallis & Miller, 2003, Hummert, et al., 2002; Milne & Grafman, 2001; Rennie, Bull, & Diamond, 2004) and allows for selective attention and voluntary response inhibition (Blakemore & Chouhdary, 2006). The IAT utilizes both selective attention and voluntary response inhibition since participants are required to pay attention and then thoughtfully respond. An illustration of the IAT can be shown using an example of a kitten and a poisonous snake. Participants would be shown a picture of a poisonous snake on one side of a computer screen and a picture of a kitten on the other side of the computer screen. The participants would be instructed to sort commonly defined positive words and negative words with either the snake or the kitten. Initially, participants would be asked to pair the negative words with the snake and the positive words with the kitten. After this first pairing they would then be asked to pair the positive words with the snake and the negative words with the kitten. Since humans do not commonly think of poisonous snakes as good, the reaction times would be slower with the second segment of words ( Through looking at how long it takes an individual to pair the negative words with the poisonous snake and vice verse researchers can quantitatively measure the innate preferences of humans regarding kittens and poisonous snakes or other assigned social categories. Since results derived from the IAT have potentially large social ramifications, several studies and discussions have examined its predictive and consequential validity (Heider & Skowronski, 2007; Greenwald, Nosek, & Sriram, 2006). One study demonstrated how reaction

5 Executive Functioning 5 times on an IAT measuring racial attitudes of Caucasian participants regarding African Americans correlated with later treatment and perception of African American confederates (Heider & Skowronski, 2007). Such studies show how reaction times can lead to important evaluations about attitude. To gain a deeper understanding of the IAT it is important to understand how differences in executive functioning ability influence an individual s responses on the IAT. Therefore the ANT presents an ideal measurement tool in examining executive functioning ability because it assesses three separate constructs involved in attention which is a vital aspect of executive functioning ability (Redick & Engle, 2006). The three separate functions of attention are the alerting network, the orienting network, and the executive control network (Redick & Engle, 2006). The alerting network is used in maintaining readiness and is assessed with the ANT by alerting or not alerting the participant prior to presenting the flanker stimuli (Redick & Engle, 2006). The orienting network has the participant choose the proper input stimulus to undergo further processing, and requires the participant to direct attention from the fixation cross to the flanker display (Redick & Engle, 2006). The last aspect of the ANT examines a participant s executive control by utilizing conflict resolution, which requires the participant to determine which direction a center arrow is pointing amidst either congruent or incongruent arrows (Fan et al., 2002). Conflict resolution is a key factor in executive control and is an important variable in understanding how implicit bias, as demonstrated on the IAT, interacts with a person s ability to consciously impede explicit action (Fan et al, 2002; Correll, et. al., 2007). Since the IAT requires the participant to pair stimuli that is contradictory to societal expectations and produces conflict, the ANT presents an ideal form of measurement since it reliably measures an

6 Executive Functioning 6 individual s ability to deal with conflicting information. The current study will examine the relationship between reaction times on the IAT and conflict scores on the ANT. It is hypothesized that individuals who exhibit longer reaction times on the IAT, when instructed to pair outgroup member stimuli with positive stimuli, will also have larger conflict scores on the ANT. This is relevant since a longer reaction time on the IAT demonstrates implicit bias and a larger conflict score on the ANT reveals difficulty with a vital executive function ability conflict resolution. Methods Participants Participants were recruited from English and Psychology courses at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. Seven out of nine classes participating were given extra credit and a total of 52 students participated. Ages of the participants ranged from To account for confounding variables, two randomly assigned groups were used. Materials Two surveys assessing attitudes about immigration were created to analyze explicit feelings about immigration (refer to Appendix B and C). The first is an adapted version of the Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, Hardee, & Batts 1981) which consists of six questions shown to consistently show feelings of racism. The second survey was created for this study and its questions were chosen from current media issues being discussed. In addition to the written surveys, students were administered two computer tests. Both the IAT and ANT tests were used. The IAT exercises were assigned first because of the IAT program s shorter duration; after participants signaled they were finished with the IAT task, the

7 Executive Functioning 7 ANT program was then presented on the screen. Procedure This procedure was identical for all groups. Participants were greeted as they walked in, both the instructions and debriefing statement were read aloud, and participants were then handed a consent form. After the consent form was signed, participants were given a session ID number and a Latino/a Modern Racism and immigration survey. The session ID number was used in place of the participants names to ensure confidentiality. Once the surveys were completed, the participants were instructed to sit in front of one of the computers in the psychology lab and a researcher instructed them to direct their attention to the computer screen in order to complete the computer portion of the experiment. The IAT task was administered first. Methods have been adapted from Dasgupta, McGhee, Greenwald, and Banaji (2000). The participants were given a name IAT, with two categories, Latino/a and White, being represented by 8 Latino/a and 8 White last names. For the Latino/a American group, the names were: Rodriguez, Lopez, Garcia, Alma, Ortega, Carillo, Cisneros, and Marquez; and for the European American group, the names were: Smith, Adams, Pratt, Bowen, Thomas, Williams, Webb, and Nelson. In addition to the name stimuli, evaluative words were also included with 16 words, 8 pleasant and 8 unpleasant selected from Bellezza, Greenwald, and Banaji (1986). The 8 pleasant words were: peace, joy, love, paradise, warmth, success, pleasure, and triumph; the 8 unpleasant words were: brutal, war, failure, bad, filth, disaster, crash, and grief. Labels in the right and left corner of the computer screen served to remind the participants what side of the screen to categorize the stimuli. These reminders read European

8 Executive Functioning 8 American and Latino/a American for the single name-target-classification blocks, Pleasant and Unpleasant for the single evaluative-target-classification blocks. The mixed target + attribute blocks also had the appropriate labels (e. g., Pleasant or Latino/a American and Unpleasant or European American ). All tasks in the IAT were administered in five blocks of 32 trials each. The first block required the participant to press the key F whenever he/she saw a European American name and to press the key J whenever he/she saw a Latino/a American name. The second block consisted of having the participants press the key F whenever a pleasant word appeared on the screen and the key J whenever an unpleasant word appeared on the screen. The third block consisted of having the participants press the key F to pair an unpleasant word with the European American name, and the key J to pair a pleasant word with the Latino/a name American. In the fourth block, participants were told to press the key F whenever a Latino/a American name appeared and to press the key J whenever a European American name appeared. With the fifth block, participants were instructed to press the key F whenever an unpleasant word appeared, in order to pair it with the Latino/a American name, and to press the key J whenever a pleasant word appeared in order to pair it with the European American name. Data-collection trials occurred after a two minute break and followed the previous paradigm. Although, several variables were present, the reaction times for two specific categories: Positive or European American and Positive or Latino/a American were analyzed. Specifically, the amount of time it took each participant to successfully pair positive evaluative words with the European American names was subtracted from the amount of time it took her/him to pair positive evaluative words with the Latino/a names.

9 Executive Functioning 9 Once participants completed the IAT portion of the computer tasks, a researcher changed windows on the computer and instructed them to log onto the ANT computer task. The stimuli for the ANT was four horizontal lines with arrowheads, known as flankers, pointing towards the left or right of the computer screen and the target, a middle arrow, which pointed in either the same direction as the others when part of a congruent trial, or pointed the opposite direction from the others when part of an incongruent trial. Participants were instructed to identify the direction of the middle arrow by pressing the key F when the arrow pointed left and by pressing the key J when the arrow pointed right. Each trial had five events. The first event was a fixation period where the screen was blank, the second event presented a warning cue, the third event consisted of another fixation period, the fourth and fifth event occurred simultaneously with both the flankers and target arrow appearing at the same time. After the computer portion of the experiment was completed, participants were thanked and excused. Results A Pearson s correlation value was calculated to assess the relationships between the IAT, the ANT, and a Latino/a Modern Racism and immigration survey. With the IAT, the implicit bias score was assessed by subtracting a participant s reaction time when pairing positive words with European Americans from a participant s reaction time when pairing positive words with Latina/o Americans. If a participant did not demonstrate bias towards one group over another, then this score would equal zero, if he/she favored the European American group over the Latina/o American group then his/her score would be above zero, and if he/she preferred the

10 Executive Functioning 10 Latina/o American group over the European American group, then his/her score would compute as a negative number. The ANT conflict score was calculated by subtracting the reaction times for congruent trials from the reaction times for incongruent trials of each participant. As with the IAT, if a participant did not have difficulty with the incongruent trials versus the congruent trials, then his/her reaction time would be zero. If his/her reaction time was above zero then he/she were faster with congruent trials than incongruent trials, and if his/her reaction was below zero than he/she was faster with incongruent trials than congruent trials. In addition to the IAT and ANT scores, a score was also calculated for the Latino/a Modern Racism and immigration surveys; these were calculated by adding a participant s score from both surveys and comparing it to the highest score possible. The mean score for the IAT was milliseconds with a standard deviation of milliseconds, the mean score for the ANT was milliseconds with a standard deviation of milliseconds, and the mean score for combined surveys was points and the standard deviation was 9.14 points. Once a participant s IAT, ANT, and survey scores were assessed through SPSS, a Pearson s correlation was administered to determine if any significant relationships existed between the previously discussed variables. First, the relationship between the IAT and ANT was examined, this resulted in a Pearson correlation of with a p-value of.680 demonstrating that no significant relationship existed between a person s preference for either European Americans or Latina/o Americans and their executive functioning ability. Contrary to what was expected, this shows that there is not a relationship between an individual s implicit bias and her/his ability to pay attention and sort between conflicting information. Such results further confirm that the IAT is in fact measuring a person s bias, and not simply his/her ability to deal with conflicting input.

11 Executive Functioning 11 The relationship between the IAT and explicit responses on the Latino/a Modern Racism and immigration survey was also assessed. A Pearson correlation of.322 with a p-value of.035 was produced. This demonstrates a moderate, positive relationship between a person s implicit bias measure and the responses on his/her explicit bias measure.

12 Executive Functioning 12 Table 1 Pearson Correlations for ANT, IAT, and Surveys

13 Executive Functioning 13 Discussion and Potential Implications Since the hypothesis from this study was not supported this may demonstrate that executive functioning ability does not influence actions related to implicit bias. In this case, other variables, such as majority group status, related to racist behavior and implicit bias would need to be further examined. For example, individuals with majority group status experience benefits like broader media representation and may not understand the position of those individuals who do not benefit from more accurate representation. The combined lack of representation and understanding may lead to prejudice that could be controlled for if equal representation was available to the minority status group. This change in understanding, images, and stories could potentially influence implicit feelings. The results may also be a reflection on the population of participants chosen for the study. The sample population was chosen from Westminster College courses and therefore only one level of educational ability, college level ability, was assessed. Since individuals already enrolled in college should already display proficient executive functioning skills, the current study s ANT conflict scores may not represent the variety of scores present in a larger, more representative sample of people. Such results may not be varied enough to make any notable conclusions related to implicit bias. Although studies have examined race and attitudes in relation to social conflicts and actions, the internal factors in racially charged situations need to be further examined as well as empirically supported by research about implicit bias and external actions, and the results of the current research provide another example of the existence of both explicit and implicit bias.

14 Executive Functioning 14 Future research could focus on how other influential factors, outside of executive functioning, demonstrate or contradict the validity of the IAT. Although the hypothesis was not supported, there is now further evidence supporting the construct validity of the IAT. By examining the internal factors that potentially contribute to racially charged behavior, the results of this study provide support to the growing research on implicit bias being related to explicit bias. Whereas a demonstration of implicit bias was expected, the strong demonstration of explicit bias was not, and the explicit bias measurements show that feelings against Latina/os and immigration are particularly strong. Since a measure of implicit bias, like the IAT, controls for many confounding variables, it is still important to demonstrate that both implicit and explicit measures accurately assess the same thing: attitudes toward Latino/as in the United States. Therefore the demonstrated relationship between both bias measurements supports the existing research about bias in the United States towards perceived outgroups and further supports the validity of the IAT. Since the specific demographic assessed belonged to a small college population of Salt Lake City, Utah, future studies could examine the explicit and implicit attitudes of politicians and policy makers of the city.

15 Executive Functioning 15 References Blakemore, S. J., & Choudhury, S. (2006). Development of the adolescent brain: implications for executive function and social cognition. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, Correll, J. (in press). 1/f noise and effort on implicit measures of bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., & Wittenbrink, B. (in press). The influence of stereotypes on decisions to shoot. European Journal of Social Psychology. Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., & Wittenbrink, B., Sadler, M. S. (2007). Across the thin blue line: Police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,92 (6), Correll, J., Urland, G. R., & Ito, T. A. (2005). Event-related potentials and the decision to shoot: The role of threat perception and cognitive control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Sommer, T., Raz, A., & Posner, M. I. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14 (3), Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., & Sriram, N. (2006). Consequential validity of the implicit association test. American Psychologist, 61, Heider, J. D., & Skowronski, J. J. (2007). Improving the predictive validity of the implicit association test. North American Journal of Psychology, 9, Hummert, M. L, Garstka, T. A., O Brien, L. T., Greenwald, A. G., & Mellott, D. S. (2002). Using the implicit association test to measure age differences in implicit social cognitions. Psychology and Aging, 17, McConahay, J.B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the Modern Racism Scale. In J.F. Dovidio & S.L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination, and racism (pp ). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

16 Executive Functioning 16 Milne, E., & Grafmen, J. (2000). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions in humans eliminate implicit gender stereotyping. The Journal of Neuroscience, 21, 1-6. Nosek, B. (2007). Implicit-Explicit Relations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, Redick, T. S., & Engle, R. W. (2006). Working memory capacity and attention network test performance. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, Wallis, J. D., & Miller, E. K. (2003). From rule to response: Neuronal processes in the premotor and prefrontal cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology, 90,

17 Executive Functioning 17 Appendix A Westminster College Institutional Review Board (IRB) For the Protection of Human Subjects Form C Short Consent Form for Adults You have been invited to participate in the research investigation entitled: Investigation of Prejudice Towards the Latina/o Community via the Implicit Association Task and Attention Network Test, conducted by or under the supervision of Raquel Gabbitas and Lesa Ellis, Ph.D. The nature and general purpose of the research procedure, as well as known risks and benefits, have been explained to you by: Raquel Gabbitas. You do not have to participate if you don t want to, and you can stop participating at any time. Your identity will be kept confidential. If you feel that you understand the risks and benefits of this study, as well as your rights as a participant, and you would like to participate, please sign and date below. Signature of Participant Date Signature of Witness Date Signature of Investigator Date

18 Executive Functioning 18 Appendix B Instructions Session ID: Please read some statements on a variety of issues. For each one please mark if you tend to: Agree Strongly, Agree Somewhat, Disagree Somewhat or Disagree Strongly. (McConahay, 1982). 1. Over the past few years the government and news media have shown more respect to Hispanics* than they deserve. 1) Strongly Disagree 2) Somewhat Disagree 3) Neutral 4) Somewhat Agree 5) Strongly Agree 2. Over the past few years Hispanics have gotten more economically than they deserve. 1) Strongly Disagree 2) Somewhat Disagree 3) Neutral 4) Somewhat Agree 5) Strongly Agree 3. Hispanics are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights. 1) Strongly Disagree 2) Somewhat Disagree 3) Neutral

19 Executive Functioning 19 4) Somewhat Agree 5) Strongly Agree 4. It s easy to understand the anger of Hispanic people in America. 1) Strongly Disagree 2) Somewhat Disagree 3) Neutral 4) Somewhat Agree 5) Strongly Agree 5. How many Hispanic people in Salt Lake County do you think miss out on good housing because white owners won t rent or sell to them many? some? only a few? or none? 1) Many 2) Some 3) A Few 4) None Please Turn Over: Additional Questions on Back of Page 6. How many Hispanics in Salt Lake County do you think miss out on jobs or promotions because of racial discrimination many? some? only a few? or none? 1) Many 2) Some 3) A Few 4) None 7. Hispanics should not push themselves where they're not wanted. 1) Strongly Disagree 2) Somewhat Disagree 3) Neutral

20 Executive Functioning 20 4) Somewhat Agree 5) Strongly Agree 8. Discrimination against Hispanics is no longer a problem in the United States. 1) Strongly Disagree 2) Somewhat Disagree 3) Neutral 4) Somewhat Agree 5) Strongly Agree *Questions adapted for the Latino/a population. *Since the term hispanic is commonly used in United States society, it will also be used in this survey.

21 Executive Functioning 21 Appendix C Immigration Survey Session ID: 1. Stricter immigration laws will create more jobs for United States citizens. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree If needed, translators should be provided to individuals not fluent in English, specifically in regards to medical care. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree Immigrants should receive federal funding for college. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree A wall should be erected between the United States and Mexican Border. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree

22 Executive Functioning Criminal activity rises when immigrants move into a community. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree Work visas should be provided to Mexicans who want to work in the United States. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree

23 Executive Functioning 23 Appendix D Investigator: Thank you for your willingness to take part in this study. For this experiment there will be two short questionnaires followed by two pairing exercises on the computer. The questionnaires will be assessing your feelings on race and immigration. In addition, one pairing exercise will be used to see how quickly you pair positive and negative words with Latino/a and White symbols, and the other one will be used to gauge attention processes. Prior to this experiment we ask that you sign a consent form. After signing the consent form, I will hand you a piece of paper that has both your name and Session ID. Please label your surveys with this session ID, and you will also use this ID for each exercise on the computer. This will ensure that all your information is confidential. Before I pass out the consent forms, Do you have any questions?