A dual-process perspective on the relationship between implicit attitudes and discriminatory behaviour

Abstract The dual-process perspective (DPP), which contrasts intuitive and deliberative cognitive processes, has advanced our understanding of the conditions under which cultural orientations, such as implicit attitudes, influence overt behaviour considerably. We test a central tenet of the DPP using a choice experiment on the placement of trust in hypothetical economic transactions. According to the principle of catalyzation, the impact of implicit cultural orientations on overt behaviour should be greater if the behaviour comes about in an intuitive rather than a deliberative manner. In this study, we focus on the implicit attitudes towards class and ethnicity and measure their impact on social behaviour via estimates of the effects of corresponding attributes within the choice experiment. Using a framing technique to experimentally induce intuitive or reflective responses, we find that implicit attitudes affect the placement of trust in the intuitive framing condition but not in the reflective framing condition. Besides providing a strict test of a central tenet of the DPP in a choice-experimental set-up, our study also sheds light on different cognitive mechanisms underlying discriminatory behaviour.