"Equality." Just about everyone in an egalitarian society agrees that equality is a positive concept. But beneath that explicit attitude lies the shadow: a matrix of implicit judgments and attitudes cloaked in a subtle scrim of civility that's not so readily apparent until put to a test where the results are measured in milliseconds.

Meet Melissa Ferguson, assistant professor of psychology, whose research probes the complexities of seemingly deliberate behaviors. One of Ferguson's specialties is an area of social psychology called "automaticity." Essentially it's the study of "the ways in which people process information about their social environment in a relatively nonconscious or unintentional fashion and the influence of that processing on their behavior," she said.

"Almost all of my work looks at implicit attitudes -- which just refers to the positivity or negativity that's activated in memory spontaneously and immediately within a fraction of a second after perceiving some stimulus."

Data for this research is gathered from subjects who complete an implicit attitude measure -- a computer-based measure of the time it takes a person to make a decision and then press a key in response to a word or concept presented on the screen. The research isn't about morals: It's about speed.

In a recent study conducted in the psychology lab in Uris Hall, 39 participants completed a measure that assessed their implicit attitudes toward "equality" and "elderly." After that, subjects then consciously -- intentionally rather than automatically -- rated the two words, among many control words, as either positive or negative on an 11-point scale.

"They then were asked to indicate their support for multiple public policies and laws, the support for one of which has been shown by other researchers to be related to subtle prejudice toward the elderly," said Ferguson.

The findings showed that people's implicit attitude toward the abstract concept of equality significantly predicted their degree of subtle prejudice. The more positive their implicit attitude, the more support they had for a program that is known for helping the elderly, Ferguson said.

In a similar study, 45 participants completed a measure that assessed their implicit attitude toward the word "thin." The same 11-point scale was then used to indicate their conscious positive response to "thin" as well as their degree of motivation to be thin. A week later, the participants were contacted to answer questions about their recent and intended behavior, Ferguson said.

"Given that one of the best strategies to be thin is to avoid eating tempting, fattening foods, we asked participants to report the number of times they had successfully resisted eating tempting food over the past week, and also how many times they intended to do so over the upcoming week," she said.

The study again showed that implicit attitudes are more powerful indicators than consciously reported attitudes for predicting such behavior and intentions.

"Their consciously and deliberately reported attitude and motivation did not predict their reported behavior," Ferguson said. In yet another study, "we found that people's implicit attitude toward thin significantly predicted the amount of cookies they ate."

Why should we care about this type of research? That's a question Ferguson takes very seriously. Until recently, Ferguson points out, "the widespread assumption in psychology has been that people generate judgments, attitudes and actions in a mostly deliberate and intentional manner."

For instance, say an employer must make a decision about whether or not to hire a minority candidate. He might say he's not prejudiced, but his implicit attitude might suggest otherwise.

"Most of the last 100 years of empirical psychology has really looked at attitudes in terms of explicit, conscious responses to questions such as 'how much do you like this candidate, policy or person on a scale of one to 10?'" she said. "[But] it turns out that assessing people's immediate affective response in terms of milliseconds, rather than asking them to report on it, can sometimes be more predictive of how they'll behave when they're making a decision about a candidate or a policy or with a person."

Ferguson's recent studies are now in press at the Journal for Personal and Social Psychology. Those interested in participating in a study in Ferguson's lab should contact the lab manager, Matt Bussard, at meb55@cornell.edu.