Over 20 years ago, Anthony Greenwald and colleagues introduced the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a measure of individual differences in implicit bias (Greenwald et al., 1998). The assumption underlying the IAT is that individuals can harbour unconscious, automatic, hidden, or implicit racial biases. These implicit biases are distinct from explicit bias. Somebody could be consciously unbiased, while their unconscious is prejudice. Theoretically, the opposite would also be possible, but taking IAT scores at face value, the unconscious is more prejudice than conscious reports of attitudes imply. It is also assumed that these implicit attitudes can influence behavior in ways that bypass conscious control of behavior. As a result, implicit bias in attitudes leads to implicit bias in behavior.
The problem with this simple model of implicit bias is that it lacks scientific support. In a recent review of validation studies, I found no scientific evidence that the IAT measures…
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