ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with groups and identity, covering the notion of ‘the self’, prejudice, and religion. Recent research in both social psychology and social neuroscience has focused on implicit measures of prejudice. These measures are almost certainly multi-faceted; that is, different cognitive mechanisms are likely to contribute to a single behavioral measure (such as the IAT). Current research in this area suggests that there are different mechanisms involved in representing the knowledge of stereotypes (e.g. semantic memory) versus one’s affective evaluation of them (e.g. in terms of potential threat). Attempts to control prejudice may engage different mechanisms depending on the extent to which one is motivated only by internal beliefs (i.e. truly non-prejudiced) or also due to an external desire to conform (i.e. potentially prejudiced).
