situation, the students were simply given the exams; in the other, each was asked to give a few personal facts, one of which was their own ethnicity. Black and white students scored equally well with no prime. With a prime, white scores were slightly (but not significantly) better, while black scores plummeted by nearly half. You can even manipulate one person’s performance in opposite directions by giving opposing primes. Asian women perform better on math tests when primed with “Asian” and worse when primed with “woman.” No one knows how long the effect of such primes endures, nor does anyone know how often a prime appears: how often is an African American reminded that he or she is such? Once a month? Once a day? Every half-hour?
The strong suggestion, then, is that it is possible for a historically degraded and/or despised minority group, now socially subordinate, to have an implicit self-image that is negative, to prefer other to self—indeed, oppressor to self—and to underperform as soon as they are made conscious of the subordinate identity. This suggests the power of imposed or induced self-deception—some or, indeed, many subordinate individuals adopting the dominant stereotype regarding themselves. Not all, of course, and the latter presumably are more likely to oppose their subjugation since they are conscious of it. In any case, revolutionary moments often seem to occur in history when large numbers of individuals have a change in consciousness, regarding themselves and their status. Whether there is an accompanying change in IAT is unknown.
FALSE CONFESSIONS, TORTURE, AND FLATTERY
A few more forms of induced self-deception are worth mentioning. It is surprisingly easy to convince people to make false confessions to major crimes even though this may—and often does—result in incarceration for long periods of time. All that is required is a susceptible victim and good old-fashioned police work applied 24/7: isolation of the victim from others, sleep deprivation, coercive interrogation in which denial and refutation are not permitted, false facts provided, and hypothetical stories told—“we have your blood on the murder weapon; perhaps you woke in a state of semiconsciousness and killed your parents without intending to or being aware of it”—with the implication that a confession will end the interrogation when, in fact, it will only begin the suspect’s misery. People differ in how susceptible they are to these pressures and in how much self-deception is eventually induced. Some go on to create false memories to back up their false confessions—with no obvious benefit to themselves.
There is also a kind of imposed self-deception that could be considered defensive self-deception. Consider an individual being tortured. The pain can be so great that something called disassociation occurs—the pain is separated from other mental systems, presumably to reduce its intensity. It is as if the psyche or nervous system protects itself from severe pain by objectifying it, distancing it, and splitting it off from the rest of the system. One can think of this as being imposed by the torturer but also as a defensive reaction permitting immediate survival under most unfavorable circumstances. We know from many, many personal accounts that this is but a temporary solution and that the torture itself and utter helplessness against it endure long afterward as psychological and biological costs. Of course, there are much more modest forms of disassociation from pain than those of torture—such as a mother distracting her child by tickling him or her.
A relatively gentle form of imposed self-deception is flattery, in which the subordinate gains in status by massaging the ego or self-image of the dominant. In royal courts, the sycophant has ample time to study the king, while the latter pays little attention to the former. The king is also presumed to have limited insight into self on general
The strong suggestion, then, is that it is possible for a historically degraded and/or despised minority group, now socially subordinate, to have an implicit self-image that is negative, to prefer other to self—indeed, oppressor to self—and to underperform as soon as they are made conscious of the subordinate identity. This suggests the power of imposed or induced self-deception—some or, indeed, many subordinate individuals adopting the dominant stereotype regarding themselves. Not all, of course, and the latter presumably are more likely to oppose their subjugation since they are conscious of it. In any case, revolutionary moments often seem to occur in history when large numbers of individuals have a change in consciousness, regarding themselves and their status. Whether there is an accompanying change in IAT is unknown.
FALSE CONFESSIONS, TORTURE, AND FLATTERY
A few more forms of induced self-deception are worth mentioning. It is surprisingly easy to convince people to make false confessions to major crimes even though this may—and often does—result in incarceration for long periods of time. All that is required is a susceptible victim and good old-fashioned police work applied 24/7: isolation of the victim from others, sleep deprivation, coercive interrogation in which denial and refutation are not permitted, false facts provided, and hypothetical stories told—“we have your blood on the murder weapon; perhaps you woke in a state of semiconsciousness and killed your parents without intending to or being aware of it”—with the implication that a confession will end the interrogation when, in fact, it will only begin the suspect’s misery. People differ in how susceptible they are to these pressures and in how much self-deception is eventually induced. Some go on to create false memories to back up their false confessions—with no obvious benefit to themselves.
There is also a kind of imposed self-deception that could be considered defensive self-deception. Consider an individual being tortured. The pain can be so great that something called disassociation occurs—the pain is separated from other mental systems, presumably to reduce its intensity. It is as if the psyche or nervous system protects itself from severe pain by objectifying it, distancing it, and splitting it off from the rest of the system. One can think of this as being imposed by the torturer but also as a defensive reaction permitting immediate survival under most unfavorable circumstances. We know from many, many personal accounts that this is but a temporary solution and that the torture itself and utter helplessness against it endure long afterward as psychological and biological costs. Of course, there are much more modest forms of disassociation from pain than those of torture—such as a mother distracting her child by tickling him or her.
A relatively gentle form of imposed self-deception is flattery, in which the subordinate gains in status by massaging the ego or self-image of the dominant. In royal courts, the sycophant has ample time to study the king, while the latter pays little attention to the former. The king is also presumed to have limited insight into self on general
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