Implicit Attitudes Towards Feminism

This study employed the Implicit Association Test to assess implicit attitudes towards feminism among 68 U.S. undergraduates. On some trials, participants matched either good or bad words with a feminist or a traditionalist target person. On other trials, they matched feminine or masculine traits with these targets. We predicted (1) faster reaction times to feminist–bad pairings than to feminist–good pairings, (2) faster reactions to traditionalist–good pairings than to traditionalist–bad pairings, (3) faster reactions to traditionalist–feminine pairings than to traditionalist–masculine pairings, and (4) faster reactions to feminist–masculine pairings than to feminist–feminine pairings. The results supported the first three predictions. These results suggest an implicit negativity bias and masculinity bias towards feminists and an implicit positivity bias and femininity bias towards traditionalists.