Implicit prejudice refers to unconsciously held, negative attitudes toward a person or group. According to the dual attitudes model, these biases operate without conscious awareness and can be detected through measures of implicit attitudes, even when an individual's explicit beliefs are non-prejudiced. This explains how subtle forms of discrimination can persist.

Implicit Prejudice

Implicit attitudes are the unconscious, uncontrollable, and automatic evaluations or biases an individual holds. These attitudes can influence behavior without the person's awareness and are often measured to reveal prejudices, such as racial bias, that are not apparent in their explicit, consciously expressed beliefs.

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The dual attitudes model is a psychological theory positing that individuals hold two distinct types of attitudes simultaneously: explicit attitudes, which are conscious and controllable, and implicit attitudes, which are unconscious and uncontrollable. This framework is often used to explain why modern forms of prejudice are difficult to detect.

Dual Attitudes Model

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Explicit attitudes are the consciously held beliefs and evaluations that an individual can deliberately think about and report. Because expressing egalitarian views is often socially desirable, people's explicit attitudes may not reveal underlying prejudices, as they can control these stated opinions.

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