The Psychological Salience of Social Identities: Interpretations of Situations for Implicit Measurement

A study examining the influence of explicit and implicit priming on sociodemographic identity salience utilizing a time forced choice survey was conducted to evaluate if priming can induce and heighten the accessibility and availability of identity related schemas. An online survey administered through Prolific was given to two groups totaling 292 participants. The survey consisted of 20 target items and 40 fillers items that served to diminish the effects of priming. The order with which the questions were presented differed across conditions. Participants also completed the Everyday Discrimination Scale to measure perceived levels of discrimination across experimental groups. Statistically the groups did not differ in their choice of racial/ethnicity sociodemographic answer choices, nor did they differ in their scores on the Everyday Discrimination scale. Also, there was no significant interaction of participant gender and sociodemographic race/ ethnicity answer choice. However, findings did indicate statistical significance in participants who identified as non-Spiritual or Liberal did choose race/ ethnicity sociodemographic answer more often than those who did not. Implications for future assessment methods, improvement to study design, and methodological scope are further considered and discussed.