Implicit and explicit measures of prejudice and stereotyping: do they assess the same underlying knowledge structure?

Do implicit and explicit measures of ethnic attitudes assess the same underlying knowledge structure in long term memory? This study uses both a correlational and an experimental design (N = 133) in order to address this central question. In the first part, we suggest that self‐presentational strategies can partly explain why the relation between implicit and explicit measures is inconsistent in the existing literature. More specifically, we show that when there are strong norms against prejudice, implicit and explicit measures are significantly negatively related. In the second part, an experimental manipulation of relative gratification (RG), the opposite of relative deprivation, reveals that when the level of explicit prejudice increases (RG condition), a similar effect is also observed at the implicit level. Together, these results suggest that implicit and explicit measures assess similar knowledge structure.