Abstract

A pencil-and-paper version of the Implicit Association Test was used to evaluate the fluency with which
participants could categorize sinful person and sinful behavior concepts with negative and positive words. The
research was conducted in Kenya and the United States. Results indicated that participants from both countries
were faster when they combined sinful person and sinful behavior concepts with negative words than when they
combined sinful person and sinful behavior concepts with positive words. Thus participants from both countries
manifested negative implicit sentiment for sinful person and sinful behavior concepts. However, the implicit
negativity manifested by Kenyan participants exceeded that of U.S. participants. The research has implications
for cultural differences between Kenya and the United States. It also has implications for cognitive theories that
describe how implicit sentiments for sinful persons might be represented within an underlying network of
cognitive associations.

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