Short Research Note Effect of Romantic Relationship on Implicit Regional Prejudice ZHENG JIN 1 * and JEFFREY W. SHERMAN 2 1 Institute of Educational Science, Zhengzhou Normal University, China 2 Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA ABSTRACT The study measures both the implicit regional prejudice and the explicit simple attitude of 93 students of five universities in China, either involved or not in different stages of a romantic relationship and at varying distances from their partners, by using the Brief Implicit Association Test and Explicit Reports. Results indicate that close relationships can contribute significantly to decreasing implicit regional prejudice. Further studies are needed to provide support for the causal mechanism between interpersonal relationships and changes in social attitudes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: Brief Implicit Association Test; implicit social cognition; intergroup relationships; social attitude; prejudice Throughout the life span, interpersonal relations are believed to be powerful influences on behaviour, cognition, and emotions (Crowell & Treboux, 2001; Crowell et al., 2002; Waters & Cummings, 2000). It is assumed that people in stable interdependent relationships are generally more secure because such relationships have the potential to satisfy deep needs of stability and security (e.g. Gerstel & Gross, 1982). For example, people are willing to settle for less in their love relationships because of fears about being single, and most people view being single as a threat to a sense of security (Spielmann et al., 2013; Anderson & Stewart, 1994). One of the basic tenets of attachment theory (Bowlby, 1982, 1988) is that interactions with others who are available and supportive in times of difficulty facilitate the forma- tion of secure attachments. In turn, secure attachment has a number of positive sequelae, including increased exploration (Feeney, 2004) and positive emotions (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2013). Stable–secure relationships have important implications for cognition and social perception. Generally, people in secure relationships tend to appraise threatening events optimistically and *Correspondence to: Zheng Jin, Zhengzhou Normal University, Institute of Educational Science, Zhengzhou 450044, China. E-mail: zhjin@ucdavis.edu Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., (2014) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/casp.2194 Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 10 March 2014