How Memory Shapes Implicit Attitudes
Josefa Toribio (ICREA-University of Barcelona)
We like to think of ourselves as fair, rational beings, guided by our values and beliefs. But psychological research tells a more complicated story. Despite sincerely embracing egalitarian ideals, many of us still act in subtly biased ways. We hesitate longer before identifying women as scientists, we unconsciously favour certain names in hiring, and we navigate social spaces with invisible constraints. What explains this dissonance?
Much of the answer lies in a set of mental states called implicit attitudes. These are affectively charged mental states that operate beneath the surface of our awareness. They are automatic and often in tension with our explicit beliefs. And yet, they shape how we perceive, judge, and act.
When we talk about implicit bias, we are describing the behavioural outputs of these implicit attitudes. Philosophers and psychologists have long debated how best to characterize the structure of implicit attitudes: Are they like beliefs, easier to correct in the face of evidence, or are they more like associations, much more difficult to eradicate? Are they a hybrid kind of entity combining affective and behavioural dispositions or even imaginative, trait-like or imagistic structures?
While this debate continues, what matters for my purposes is rather to ask what gives rise to these implicit attitudes. And when the issue is how implicit attitudes are acquired (as opposed to what they really are), almost everyone agrees that they are acquired through some form of associative learning. Additionally, a compelling case can be made that this associative learning is rooted in memory—not the kind of memory that lets you recall your first day at school, but implicit memory, a form of memory that shapes behaviour without conscious recollection.
When you effortlessly navigate your way home, intuitively complete a familiar sentence, or flinch at the sound of a dentist’s drill, implicit memory is at work. It operates behind the scenes, shaping your actions without demanding your attention. This type of memory is not stored as discrete, verbalizable items; rather, it manifests as skill, habit, or intuitive judgment.
Implicit memory stores learned associations acquired through experience and retrieves them without our awareness. These associations are often culturally shaped, continually reinforced through repeated exposure to stereotypes, norms, and scripts that become second nature. They are automatic, cue-driven, and hard to control. Just as your hand might reach for your phone when you're bored, your mind might activate a stereotype when you see a certain face.
Both are learned patterns of response. And both can be changed, but not without effort. We are surrounded from early on by social cues—media portrayals, overheard conversations, observed behaviours—that encode associations between groups and traits. Over time, these associations become deeply ingrained. We may not remember where or when we learned them, but they shape our social judgments all the same. In this way, implicit memory helps explain how implicit attitudes are formed and persist even in those who consciously reject them.
From this perspective, implicit attitudes are deeply “passive” structures. They are triggered by environmental cues and produce behavioural tendencies that bypass our deliberative faculties. This passivity is one reason they are so resistant to change and are seldom corrected by argument. They are habits of mind, and habits, as we know, take time and effort to retrain. But here’s the rub: even habitual responses don’t operate in isolation. They are shaped, modulated, and sometimes overridden by other memory systems. And that’s where episodic memory enters the picture.
Episodic memory is the system that allows us to recall personal experiences—what we did, where we were, how we felt. Unlike the associative and automatic nature of implicit memory, episodic memory is explicit and often deliberate. It is what we use when we reflect on past events or recount meaningful episodes from our lives. It is rich in detail and emotionally resonant. When you recall an argument you had last week, or the joy of a childhood birthday party, you are drawing on episodic memory.
Why does episodic, and hence explicit memory matter for implicit attitudes? Because implicit attitudes are not merely unconscious imprints of culture. They also emerge from a dynamic interplay between habit and history, between automatic associations and the episodic recall of personally significant experiences. To understand implicit attitudes fully, we must recognize how these two memory systems interact—and how together they shape the judgments we make, often without us realizing how we got there.
In fact, episodic memory often contributes to the formation and persistence of implicit attitudes and the biases they trigger because it encodes personally meaningful experiences with rich contextual and emotional detail. A single negative encounter with a member of a social group—particularly if it is emotionally charged or perceived as salient—can leave a deep episodic trace. That trace, in turn, can become a powerful lens through which future interactions are interpreted, confirming and entrenching the very implicit attitudes one might otherwise reject. In this way, implicit attitudes emerge not only from cultural exposure and habit, but from the remembered texture of personal history.
But here is an interesting fact. While episodic memory can sometimes reinforce implicit attitudes, its influence can also be corrective. Imagine someone who grew up surrounded by subtle racial stereotypes. These formed the backbone of their implicit associations: certain faces became linked with danger, certain accents with ignorance, certain professions with prestige. But now imagine that this person has, over time, had several vivid, emotionally salient experiences that run counter to these stereotypes—say, a deep friendship, an act of unexpected generosity, or a moment of shared vulnerability.
These episodes, encoded in memory with rich contextual detail, may not immediately erase the underlying associations, but they can modulate their influence. Episodic memory serves here as a kind of corrective lens, allowing the individual to recall concrete, personally meaningful counterexamples to the stereotypes carried in implicit memory. This does not eliminate their implicit attitudes overnight. But it does introduce tension, nuance, and the possibility of reflection. It opens a space where habit can be questioned in light of these memories. In this way, episodic memory can also temper the automaticity of implicit attitudes. It does not always prevent implicitly biased behaviour, but it can interrupt, reshape, or contextualize it. Moreover, it provides the raw material for deliberative efforts to retrain one’s habits—to engage in practices of self-monitoring, counter-stereotypical exposure, or perspective-taking.
Taken together, these considerations suggest that implicit attitudes are best understood not as the product of a single memory system, but as emerging from a dually structured memory architecture. On one side, we have implicit memory—automatic, culturally shaped, and habitual. On the other, episodic memory—personally meaningful, reflectively accessible, and context-sensitive. These systems interact dynamically. While implicit memory provides the background texture of learned associations, episodic memory offers moments of either reinforcement or resistance. The implicit biases triggered by implicit attitudes, then, are not simply an automatic response—they are patterns of response shaped by both the norms we have absorbed and the experiences we have encoded.
Now, some may worry that if implicit attitudes are products of an unconscious memory system and of experiences they probably could not control, individuals should not be held accountable for the discriminatory behaviours they cause. But this is too quick. A more nuanced view recognizes that while implicit attitudes may arise passively, we are not wholly passive in their expression.
Responsibility, on this view, is less about blame and more about capacity. It is about our ability to recognize when our habitual responses conflict with our values, and to engage memory and reflection in ways that gradually reshape those responses. It is about cultivating awareness, building new experiences, and structuring environments that support better habits.
Crucially, this approach shifts the focus from punishment to correction. If implicit attitudes are rooted in memory systems that respond to pattern and exposure, then sustained, structural changes in what we see, hear, and live will have lasting effects. The goal is not to assign guilt, but to foster the conditions under which better habits—supported by better memories—can take hold.
THIS: "... implicit attitudes are not merely unconscious imprints of culture. They also emerge from a dynamic interplay between habit and history, between automatic associations and the episodic recall of personally significant experiences. To understand implicit attitudes fully, we must recognize how these two memory systems interact—and how together they shape the judgments we make, often without us realizing how we got there."