Implicit preferences are malleable, but does that change last? We tested nine interventions (eight real and one sham) to reduce implicit racial preferences over time. In two studies with a total of 6,321 participants, all nine interventions immediately reduced implicit preferences. However, none were effective after a delay of several hours to several days. We also found that these interventions did not change explicit racial preferences and were not reliably moderated by motivations to respond without prejudice. Short-term malleability in implicit preferences does not necessarily lead to long-term change, raising new questions about the flexibility and stability of implicit preferences.Word Count: 100 Keywords: attitudes, racial prejudice, implicit social cognition, malleability, Implicit Association Test Full CitationLai, C. K., Skinner, A. L., Cooley, E., Murrar, S., Brauer, M., Devos, T., Calanchini, J., Xiao, Y. J., Pedram, C., Marshburn, C. K., Simon, S., Blanchar, J. C., Joy-Gaba, J. A., Conway, J., Redford, L., Klein, R. A., Roussos, G., Schellhaas, F. M. H., Burns, M., Hu, X., McLean, M. C., Axt, J. R., Asgari, S., Schmidt, K., Rubinstein., R, Marini, M., Rubichi, S., Shin,. J. L., & Nosek, B. A. (2016). Reducing implicit racial preferences: II. Intervention effectiveness across time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 1001-1016. REDUCING IMPLICIT RACIAL PREFERENCES 3 Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: II. Intervention Effectiveness Across TimeEarly theories of implicit social cognition suggested that implicit associations were largely stable. These claims were supported by evidence that changes in conscious belief did not lead to corresponding changes in implicit associations (e.g., Devine, 1989;Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). The psychologist John Bargh referred to the stability of implicit cognitions as the "cognitive monster": "Once a stereotype is so entrenched that it becomes activated automatically, there is really little that can be done to control its influence" (p. 378, Bargh, 1999). This dominant view has changed over the past fifteen years to one of implicit malleability, with many studies finding that implicit associations are sensitive to lab-based interventions (for reviews, see Blair, 2002;Gawronski & Bodenhausen 2006;Lai, Hoffman, & Nosek, 2013). These interventions vary greatly in approach. In one, for example, participants are exposed to images of people who defy stereotypes (e.g., admired Black people / hated White people; Joy-Gaba & Nosek, 2010). In another, participants are given goals to override implicit biases (e.g., Mendoza, Gollwitzer, & Amodio, 2010;Stewart & Payne, 2008).In most of the research on implicit association change, the short-term malleability of associations is tested by administering an implicit measure immediately after the intervention. Studies examining long-term change in implicit associations are rare. In a meta-analysis on experiments to change implicit associations (Forscher, Lai, et al., 2016), only 22 (3.7%) of 585 studies ...

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In this article we address a number of important issues that arise in the analysis of nonindependent data. Such data are common in studies in which predictors vary within "units" (e.g., within-subjects, within-classrooms). Most researchers analyze categorical within-unit predictors with repeated-measures ANOVAs, but continuous within-unit predictors with linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs). We show that both types of predictor variables can be analyzed within the LMEM framework. We discuss designs with multiple sources of nonindependence, for example, studies in which the same subjects rate the same set of items or in which students nested in classrooms provide multiple answers. We provide clear guidelines about the types of random effects that should be included in the analysis of such designs. We also present a number of corrective steps that researchers can take when convergence fails in LMEM models with too many parameters. We end with a brief discussion on the trade-off between power and generalizability in designs with "within-unit" predictors. (PsycINFO Database Record

Much recent work on stereotyping has dealt with groups that are either artificially created or that do not have an extensive history of conflict. The authors attempted to overcome this limitation by examining issues of perceived variability and ethnocentrism among samples of White American and African American youth. The goals were both to examine theoretical issues in stereotyping and to describe the current state of ethnic interrelations among young people. Four studies are reported. Throughout, the samples of African Americans demonstrate interethnic judgments that are consistent with existing work on stereotyping and ethnocentrism. White American students, however, reported judgements that replicate neither the out-group homogeneity effect nor ethnocentrism. Alternative explanations for this difference are considered, and the discussion focuses on differing views concerning the role of ethnic identity and diversity in our society.

Answers to the question "What are human emotions for?" have stimulated highly productive programs of research on emotional phenomena in psychology and neuroscience in the past decade. Although a variety of functions have been proposed and examined at different levels of abstraction, what is undeniable is that when emotional processing is compromised, most things social go awry. In this review we survey the research findings documenting the functions of emotion and link these to new discoveries about how emotion is accurately processed and transmitted. We focus specifically on emotion processing in dyads and groups, which reflects the current scientific trend. Within dyads, emotional expressions and learning and understanding through vicarious emotion are the phenomena of interest. Behavioral and brain mechanisms supporting their successful occurrence are evaluated. At the group level, group emotions and group-based emotions, two very different phenomena, are discussed, and mechanistic accounts are reviewed.

The perception of group variability is affected by social power and status. Three different mechanisms may be responsible for these effects: (a) the power of the perceiver affects perceived group variability; (b) the power of the perceived group affects its perceived variability; and (c) the power of the group affects its actual variability. Two studies are reported to tease apart these three mechanisms and provide support for the third. In the first study, high- and low-power groups interacted and subsequently judged each other. In the second study, participants observed and rated the Study 1 groups, either knowing their power relationship or not. Results suggest that members of high-power groups manifest greater interpersonal variability than members of low-power groups.

Past research provided abundant evidence that exposure to violent video games increases aggressive tendencies and decreases prosocial tendencies. In contrast, research on the effects of exposure to prosocial video games has been relatively sparse. The present research found support for the hypothesis that exposure to prosocial video games is positively related to prosocial affect and negatively related to antisocial affect. More specifically, two studies revealed that playing a prosocial (relative to a neutral) video game increased interpersonal empathy and decreased reported pleasure at another's misfortune (i.e., schadenfreude). These results lend further credence to the predictive validity of the General Learning Model (Buckley & Anderson, 2006) for the effects of media exposure on social tendencies.

Observers of deviant social behavior sometimes communicate disapproval directly or indirectly to the perpetrator of a deviant act. This reaction has been termed 'social control'. Three field studies were conducted to explore the influence of the number of bystander-observers on the likelihood of social control. We predicted that the presence of others would inhibit people's tendency to communicate their disapproval to the deviant but only if personal implication was low. In the first study, we measured participants' perceptions of two fictive situations, one in which a deviant draws graffiti in an elevator of a shopping center and one in which a deviant litters in a small neighborhood park by throwing a plastic bottle in the bushes. As expected, participants considered both behaviors to be equally counternormative but felt personally more implicated by the littering behavior in the park. In Studies 2 and 3, the two situations were enacted with confederates of the experimenter. Naïve bystanders served as participants, and social control was the primary dependent variable. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found evidence for a bystander effect in the low personal implication situation ('graffiti in the elevator') but not in the high personal implication situation ('littering in park'). These results make clear that perceived personal implication moderates the extent to which people are inhibited by the presence of others when they decide whether they should exert social control or not.