9 / 16
ICS
W
O
R
K
I
N
G
P
A
P
E
R
S
2017
measure of implicit prejudice. Furthermore, we also wanted to test whether the activation of a
meritocratic norm elicits intra-individual variation of levels of implicit prejudice.
Study 2
The second study sought to replicate the results of the first study using a different
manipulation of meritocracy and a different measure of implicit prejudice. Moreover, in this
study, implicit prejudice was measured before and after the experimental manipulation,
allowing for the analysis of the intra-individual variations of implicit prejudice as a function of
meritocracy priming.
As in the first study, participants were asked to take part in two, supposedly unrelated
studies. After arriving in the lab, participants were informed that a new measure of social
perception was being tested and therefore they would be asked to take the same task twice to
analyze the characteristics of the measure. The “new measure” was in fact an Affective
Priming Task (APT) used here for the measurement of implicit prejudice. After the first
administration of the APT, participants were told that, in order to fill the free time before the
second administration of the measure, they would take part in a
Scrambled Sentence Task
that
contained the experimental manipulation. After this task, all participants again completed an
APT as the “supposed” second part of test measurement. Once again, we expected to observe
higher levels of implicit prejudice in the condition of meritocracy than in the neutral condition.
Additionally, we predicted that there should be a significant increase of individuals’ levels of
implicit prejudice from Time 1 to Time 2 only in the condition where the meritocratic norm
was primed.
Method
Participants and design
Thirty-six Dutch students (78% female;
M
age
= 21.2 yrs) took part in the experiment in
exchange for partial course credit or or a
Eur
5 token. Participants were randomly distributed
in a 2 (Meritocracy vs. Neutral) X 2 (Time 1 vs. Time 2) mixed model design with repeated
measures on the scores of implicit prejudice.
Manipulation of meritocracy.
The manipulation was presented as a Scrambled
Sentence Task (adapt. from Srull & Wyer, 1979). Participants were asked to transform 18 sets
of 5 words into 18 logical 4-word sentences. In the meritocracy condition, 10 sentences
conveyed messages related to meritocracy (e.g. “Lazy people are unsuccessful.”; “No pain, no
7