Banaji, Mahzarin R.

Phelps, Elizabeth A.

Sokol-Hessner, Peter

Stanley, Damian A.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Reply to Krueger: Good point, wrong paperThe Harvard community has made thisarticle openly available.  Please share  howthis access benefits you. Your story mattersCitation Stanley, Damian A., Peter Sokol-Hessner, Mahzarin R. Banaji, andElizabeth A. Phelps. 2011. Reply to Krueger: Good point, wrongpaper. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 32:E411. doi:10.1073/pnas.1107937108.Published Version doi:10.1073/pnas.1107937108Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:27416627Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASHrepository, and is made available under the terms and conditionsapplicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAALETTERReply to Krueger: Good point,wrong paperIn his letter, Krueger (1) raises an important issue regardingquestions of prediction of behavior from tests of underlyingmental states. We think it is important to make the distinctionhere between using the implicit association test (IAT) for di-agnostic purposes (e.g., to classify individuals as ‘racist’) andusing the IAT for research purposes (i.e., to investigate a po-tential contributing factor to trust behavior in our study) (2). Weemphatically agree with Krueger (1) that, in its current in-stantiation, the IAT should not be used for diagnostic purposes.Indeed, the concern of Krueger (1) is exactly the one that wewould raise ourselves if anyone attempted to use test scoresto isolate individuals and hold them responsible. We have alwaysexplicitly eschewed such a notion. No test perfectly predictsbehavior, including those tests that are often used for selection.The IAT, as currently implemented, is a research and educa-tional technique, not a selection technique; although relevantwhen considering future uses of the IAT, the concerns ofKrueger (1) do not apply here.Our stated goal was to determine whether there was evi-dence of a behavioral link between two distinct psychologicalvariables (disparity in trust behavior and implicit racial bias asmeasured by the IAT). We were motivated by evidence fora common neural substrate, but the fact that we found a corre-lation was not a foregone conclusion. We did not make theclaim that one’s IAT score was diagnostic of whether one was‘racist’ in their trust behavior (2). Trust estimations are complex,and the evidence from our own study (2) and others suggestedthat they covaried with many factors, both explicit and implicit.We showed that the extent to which trust estimations variedwith respect to a partner’s race can be predicted in part by theirIAT scores—in addition to and independently of other factors(2). As such, the correlation between one’s IAT score and trustbehavior was an important indicator of the degree to whichimplicit attitudes may contribute to trust decisions.The ﬁnding that, on average, there was little discriminatorytrust behavior is not novel (3) and was supported by our originalneuroimaging ﬁnding (4). In that study, there was little overalldifference in the amygdala response to black vs. white faces buta signiﬁcant correlation between implicit racial bias and amyg-dala activation. The presence of this correlation in the absenceof a correlation between an explicit measure of race bias andamygdala activity was a theoretically important discovery.We found a signiﬁcant correlation between IAT test scoresand trust behavior (2). This result meant that those individualswith stronger pro-white IAT scores were more likely to discrim-inate against blacks, not that they would deﬁnitely do so.Although Krueger (1) is right to worry about the potentialmisuse of the IAT in a diagnostic capacity, he is off-base inmaking that point about a paper (2) that showed, consistent withmounting evidence from dozens of studies (5), that implicitmeasures of attitudes and beliefs predicted ecologicallyrealistic behavior.Damian A. Stanleya, Peter Sokol-Hessnera, Mahzarin R. Banajib,and Elizabeth A. Phelpsa,1aDepartment of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY10003; and bDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cam-bridge, MA 021381. Krueger JI (2011) Decision-theoretic perspective on racial mistrust. Proc Natl Acad SciUSA 108:E410.2. Stanley DA, Sokol-Hessner P, Banaji MR, Phelps EA (2011) Implicit race attitudes predicttrustworthiness judgments and economic trust decisions. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:7710–7715.3. Green AR, et al. (2007) Implicit bias among physicians and its prediction of throm-bolysis decisions for black and white patients. J Gen Intern Med 22:1231–1238.4. Phelps EA, et al. (2000) Performance on indirect measures of race evaluation predictsamygdala activation. J Cogn Neurosci 12:729–738.5. Jost JT, et al. (2009) The existence of implicit bias is beyond reasonable doubt: A ref-utation of ideological and methodological objections and executive summary of tenstudies that no manager should ignore. Res Organ Behav 29:39–69.Author contributions: D.A.S., P.S.-H., M.R.B., and E.A.P. wrote the paper.The authors declare no conﬂict of interest.1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: liz.phelps@nyu.edu.www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1107937108 PNAS | August 9, 2011 | vol. 108 | no. 32 | E411

Reply to Krueger: Good point, wrong paper

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Reply to Krueger: Good point, wrong paper

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