title: The rules of implicit evaluation by race, religion, and age.
abstract: The social world is stratified. Social hierarchies are known but often disavowed as anachronisms or unjust. Nonetheless, hierarchies may persist in social memory. In three studies (total N > 200,000), we found evidence of social hierarchies in implicit evaluation by race, religion, and age. Participants implicitly evaluated their own racial group most positively and the remaining racial groups in accordance with the following hierarchy: Whites > Asians > Blacks > Hispanics. Similarly, participants implicitly evaluated their own religion most positively and the remaining religions in accordance with the following hierarchy: Christianity > Judaism > Hinduism or Buddhism > Islam. In a final study, participants of all ages implicitly evaluated age groups following this rule: children > young adults > middle-age adults > older adults. These results suggest that the rules of social evaluation are pervasively embedded in culture and mind.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia jaxt@virginia.edu.
authors: Jordan R
authors: JR
authors: Axt
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia.
authors: Charles R
authors: CR
authors: Ebersole
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia Center for Open Science, Charlottesville, Virginia.
authors: Brian A
authors: BA
authors: Nosek
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D063506:Ageism; D001290:Attitude; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011287:Prejudice; D063505:Racism; D012067:Religion; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: associative processes; open data; open materials; prejudice; racial and ethnic attitudes and relations; social cognition; social perception