The idea of prejudice as a tendency that can be generalized from one target to another and the personality–prejudice relationship have been widely examined using explicit measures. However, less is known about this tendency and its relation to personality for implicit prejudice measures, like the implicit association test (IAT). Three studies including explicit and corresponding implicit prejudice measures toward various target groups confirmed a generalized factor for both types of measures with a stronger common component for the explicit factor. Personality was significantly related to the explicit measures only. Also, the personality and prejudice measures were unrelated to explicit and implicit attitudes toward an irrelevant target which rules out potential method confound. These results indicate that explicit and implicit prejudice measures tap different psychological constructs relating differently to the individual’s self-reported personality. The findings have implications for the debate on whether IAT scores reflect personally endorsed attitudes.
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