ICS Working Papers Nº1/2017

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ICS WORKING PAPERS 2017
PRIMING MERITOCRACY INCREASES IMPLICIT PREJUDICE
“I don’t believe in luck, I believe in a work well done”
José Mourinho
This quote is part of a new commercial where José Mourinho, currently one of the
most famous and successful soccer managers in the world, stresses the belief that presumably
explains his success. This is a recent example of the ever more prevalent norm of meritocracy
that characterizes most modern Western societies.
Meritocracy is a social norm according to which social status and rewards should
depend on individual effort and hard work (Kluegel & Smith, 1986). Though meritocracy is
widely seen as a positive norm that regulates society by rewarding people based on their
efforts, the fact is that the endorsement of this norm has been shown to be associated with a
higher acceptance of intergroup inequalities (McCoy & Major, 2007, Myrdal, 1944)). In line
with this, other studies have found a link between meritocracy and explicit racial attitudes
(e.g., Biernat et al, 1996; Vala, Lima & Lopes, 2004). As yet, however, the effects of meritocracy
have not been analyzed outside the field of explicit attitudes. Considering the importance of
implicit prejudice (Strack & Deutsch, 2004) we aimed to analyze how meritocracy impacts on
implicit prejudice.
The malleability of implicit prejudice
Some have argued that, due to its automatic nature, implicit prejudice is unaffected by
context (Bargh, 1999). However, a consistent body of research emerged showing the
malleability of implicit prejudice (Blair, 2002). Most studies on this topic identify factors that
inhibit the expression of implicit prejudice (e.g. Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001). The few studies
that focus on factors that promote the expression of implicit prejudice look at the influence of
only clearly negative aspects. For example, Wittenbrink, Judd and Park (2001) found higher
levels of implicit prejudice towards Blacks when these were presented in a negative context.
An exception is found in the work of Zogmaister and colleagues (Zogmaister, Arcuri, Castelli &
Smith, 2008). These authors showed that it is possible to observe an increase of implicit
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