Socio-cognitive Systems of Organizational Culture and Communication. An Investigation into Implicit Cognitive Processes

Social systems can be seen as complex adaptive systems. They organize themselves through social action, while culture creates the structure in which social action takes place. Cognitive schemas of interpretation are the fundament on which people classify, integrate and store cultural relevant information. Although they are mostly automated and not directly observable, they are the building blocks of culture and influence our social and communicative behavior. Implicit processes are intuitive, spontaneous, unintentional and mostly unconscious. They include attitudes, stereotypes, motives and the underlying tenor. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a social psychological method based on reaction time originally developed for measuring unconscious social perception (e.g. stereotypes). Compared to more explicit methods such as interviews or questionnaires, implicit methods are less susceptible to social desirability issues and well suited to analyze topics and attitudes the participants are not aware of. This paper presents a case study on the use of the IAT in an organizational setting.