focused on a variety of topics, such as implicit attitudes [1,21,22], implicit stereotypes [23,24,25] and automatic goals [26]. Thus far, the implicit associations that may result from essentialist ontologies have not yet been assessed. The current studies address this with a common tool used in assessing implicit social cognition–the Implicit Association Test [1]. The Present Research In our first study, we used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure the automatic connections between genes and fate. The IAT has shown relatively robust test-retest reliability [27] and predictive validity [28], and has become a standard measure of implicit associations in the psychological literature. The IAT asks participants to place words into one of two opposing categories, such as flowers vs. insects using keys on the left and right side of a keyboard. It then asks participants to do the same with two other opposing categories, for instance, the evaluative judgment good vs. bad. Participants then complete trials in which ‘‘flower’’ words are paired with ‘‘good’’ words, while ‘‘insect’’ words are paired with ‘‘bad’’ words, as quickly as they possibly can. They are then asked to do the reverse: pairing ‘‘flower’’ words with ‘‘bad’’ words and ‘‘insect’’ words with ‘‘good’’ words. If the mean response times (in milliseconds) diverge between these different trials, then there are likely automatic associations between these categories, such that participants may more quickly associate ‘‘flower’’ words with ‘‘good’’ words. Indeed, this is exactly what researchers have found in conducting a flowers vs. insects IAT [1]. The constraints of the IAT require dichotomies and contrasts. For the current study, ‘‘choice’’ emerged as a likely contrast for fate, since fates are inherently assigned and are not chosen. Presumably, choice can be understood as a completely un- determined act of free will [29]. Though some people view determinism and free will as peacefully co-existing [29], many philosophers and lay people construe determinism and free will as being incompatible, which legitimizes the inclusion as ‘‘choice’’ as an opposite of ‘‘fate’’ [30,31]. We chose ‘‘socialization’’ as a clear opposite for genes, since nature (i.e. genes) and nurture (one’s socialization) have long been juxtaposed as alternative categories [32]. We expected that participants may pair ‘‘gene’’ words with ‘‘fate’’ words in the same way that they automatically pair ‘‘flower’’ words with ‘‘good’’ words, when choice and socialization are contrasted. In Study 2, we adapted a single-target version of the IAT to look more closely at the associations between genes and fate vs. genes and choice. Since the IAT in Study 1 relies on dichotomies we cannot be certain that genetic associations with fate would be driving the effect. An alternative interpretation may be that socialization is particularly associated with choice, which might result in the particular differences in response times we found in this study. Study 2 disentangles this problem by using a single- target version of the IAT. Like the original IAT, this single-target version has shown good reliability and validity [33]. Unlike the original, though, it relies on only one group of dichotomous categories. For instance, it pairs insect words with ‘‘bad’’ words while asking participants to place ‘‘good’’ words in a category of its own. Subsequently, it pairs insect words with ‘‘good’’ words while asking participants to place ‘‘bad’’ words in its own category. By comparing these two different trials, we can more carefully assess whether or not insects are more closely associated with good or bad evaluations. Thus, this task was ideal for assessing how closely genes were associated with fate, as compared to choice. Implicit Essentialism Ethics Statement For all of the studies presented, we obtained behavioral research ethics board approval from the University of British Columbia. Participant’s consent was indicated by clicking on a computer button, and thereby choosing to continue on to the rest of the study, as was approved by the UBC Behavioral Research Ethics Board. Method Study 1 Thirteen men and 34 women were recruited by Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, which compensates participants with Amazon.- com merchandise in return for completing on-line tasks. Data recruited from Mechanical Turk have been shown to be comparable to data collected by more traditional, lab-based methods [34]. Participants’ ages ranged from 20 to 58 (M = 39), and the majority (n = 37) were of European descent. Two others were East Asians, one was Middle-Eastern, and the rest described themselves as ‘‘white’’ or as ‘‘multi-racial.’’ All were citizens of the United States. Participants completed an IAT that was specifically adapted to capture associations between genes, socialization, fate, and choice. The words chosen for these categories were typically synonyms or near-synonyms for the category name, and so we expected they would be closely identified with each other. Participants were allotted practice trials to place genetic words (e.g., ‘‘genome,’’ ‘‘DNA,’’ ‘‘heredity’’) vs. socialization words (e.g., ‘‘nurture,’’ ‘‘training,’’ ‘‘experience’’) into their proper categories by typing corresponding keys on the keyboard. Afterwards, they practiced categorizing words relating to fate (e.g., ‘‘God,’’ ‘‘destiny,’’ ‘‘certainty,’’) vs. words related to choice (e.g., ‘‘free-will’’, ‘‘option’’, ‘‘opinion’’; the complete list of words in the respective categories is provided in Appendix S1). Then participants were asked to place ‘‘fate’’ words and ‘‘gene’’ words into the same category while placing ‘‘choice’’ and ‘‘socialization’’ words in a second category as quickly as possible. They were then directed to do just the opposite, placing ‘‘fate’’ and ‘‘socialization’’ words into the same category while identifying ‘‘choice’’ and ‘‘gene’’ words into another category. By comparing the differences in response times between these trials, we can calculate the magnitude of implicit bias. Response times were analyzed with the most recent scoring algorithm [35]. By subtracting response time means per partici- pant for the Gene + Fate/Socialization + Choice trial from the response time means per participant for the Gene + Choice/ Socialization + Fate trial, while dividing by the standard deviation of each participants’ responses, this scoring algorithm produces a standardized measure of IAT bias. Study 2 One hundred and thirty-five participants completed this study, however the results of 7 participants were excluded because more than 10% of their responses fell below the cut-off of 300 ms recommended in IAT studies [35]. This left 87 women, 40 men, and 2 participants who did not specify their genders, who were all recruited by Mechanical Turk. Their ages ranged from 18 to 67 (M = 36), and the majority (n = 99) were of European descent. The rest were East Asian (n = 7), African (n = 6), South-east Asian (n = 2), Middle Eastern (n = 4), with nine who self-reported races as Hispanic (n = 2), Caucasian (n = 2), Native American (n = 1), American (n = 1), as mixed race (n = 1), or as not knowing (n = 2). Two declined to respond. Again, all participants were citizens of the United States. PLoS ONE | www.plosone.org 2 June 2012 | Volume 7 | Issue 6 | e38176