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MENTAL MODEL · M3533

Implicit Association

Implicit Association
BehaviorHigh supportSocial Psychology
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Updated 2026-08-05

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Attitudes, stereotypes, and associations that form outside conscious awareness and cannot be reliably reported through introspection. The construct became measurable through the Implicit Association Test developed by Anthony Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek, which infers association strength from how quickly people pair categories with positive or negative words. The key qualifier is that implicit measures predict spontaneous, low-control behavior better than deliberate choices do, while explicit measures predict stated preferences. Holding an implicit association does not by itself imply endorsement or intent.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Bias Screening: test your own automatic pairings before designing a hiring or review process. - System Over Willpower: replace promises of fairness with blind review and structured scoring. - Defensive Reduction: frame implicit bias as a normal byproduct of exposure, not a moral verdict.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Repeated exposure to cultural pairings, such as science with male or leadership with assertive, strengthens the association through ordinary learning. Once formed, the link activates automatically and speeds up compatible responses while slowing incompatible ones, which is exactly what the reaction times detect. Because the process is automatic rather than deliberate, knowing about a bias does not remove it; only changes in exposure, context, and decision structure shift the underlying association over time.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit-association_testZH · Explicit
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