Aversive Racism Measure
(Dovidio et al., 1986 ).
Variable
The broad theory of aversive racism posits that well-intentioned Whites avoid the possibility of their own
potential racism, both by explicitly denying it and by avoiding interracial contact, which makes them uncomfort-
able, but only when they can find a nonracial excuse for avoidance (e.g., Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986 ). Most rele-
vant to measurement is the associated priming measure, perhaps the earliest latency measure of racism, but
relevant here because, like the indirect priming measure, it was not covered in either earlier edition of this vol-
ume ( Robinson et al., 1991, 1999 ). In this measure, Whites have to identify words and nonword letter strings as
words or nonwords; they are faster to identify positive traits (‘smart’) as words when primed with ‘Whites’ than
with ‘Blacks’ ( Dovidio et al., 1986 ;Gaertner & McLaughlin, 1983 ;Perdue et al., 1990 ). Ingroup positivity effects
can be separated from outgroup negativity effects, unlike the standard IAT, and ingroup favoritism proves
stronger.
Description
In one illustrative case ( Dovidio et al., 1986 ; see below), male and female undergraduates were told to think
about the typical member of the primed category on practice trials using male, female, and house. Then, on the
main task, having thought about typical members of the categories ‘black,’ ‘white,’ or ‘house,’ participants were
primed for 2 secs with ‘black,’ ‘white,’ or ‘house,’ and after .5 secs, had to answer whether each of 16 adjectives,
yes, ‘could ever be true’ of or no, were ‘always false’ about the primed category. Of the test words, eight referred
solely to objects ( drafty, metallic ), and eight were racially stereotypic: White positive ( ambitious, practical ), Black
positive ( musical, sensitive ), White negative ( conventional, stubborn ), and Black negative ( lazy, imitative ). Each term
was paired twice with each prime, for a total of 96 trials. Stereotypic associations were faster. These methods and
results resemble contemporaneous work ( Gaertner & McLaughlin, 1983 ;Perdue et al., 1990 ).
Sample
In the above illustrative example, 36 undergraduates participated. To our knowledge, nonstudent samples
have not been used because of the complexity and sensitivity of the required controls.
Reliability
Test/C0Retest
Using both more and different race-related primes (stereotypic adjectives), as well as more and different racial
stimuli (yearbook photos), a Black /C0White categorization task elicited rapid, racial associations that recurred reli-
ably over times from one hour to two weeks ( raveraging .51). A subliminal variation showed similar stability
over a three-week period ( Kawakami & Dovidio, 2001 ).
Validity
Divergent/Discriminant
Dovidio et al. (1986) matched items across race for consensus and favorability, and the nature of the response
to Black and White stereotypic adjective was held constant (‘yes,’ ‘could ever be true’), so as to unconfound race
and the nature of the response. The sides for the yes/C0nokeys were counterbalanced. In many of the relevant
studies, categorization errors (typically fewer than 3 /C05%) and response times more than three standard devia-
tions above the mean are eliminated.
Having just introduced indirect priming, a comparison of the tasks is in order. They are similar in that both
present racial primes. They differ in the target after the prime and in the required response. In the aversive rac-
ism measure, ingroup /C0outgroup primes precede positive /C0negative racially stereotypic words as targets. Control
words are sometimes nonhuman object-related words or a meaningless string of letters, with respectively an
ever-true/never-true decision or a word/nonword decision, each speeded by matches between racial primes and
relevant stereotypic words. Here, conceptual meaning (as well as valence) matters.
In the just-covered indirect-prime measure, the prime precedes a target word unrelated to race, merely posi-
tive or negative, to which the required response is good/C0bad. There, only evaluative match matters. Conceptual
and evaluative priming do indeed differ ( Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 2001a ). For example, conceptual biases699 OVERVIEW OF THE MEASURES
VI. SOCIOCULTURAL INTERACTION AND CONFLICT