Does Conventional Implicit Association Test of Shyness Measure “Self‐Shyness” or “Others‐Shyness”?

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures implicit associations between attitude targets and attributes. Its structure and procedure facilitate investigation of the strength of associations between one target and attributes relative to that between the other target and the same attributes when two targets are contradictory (e.g., black/white and comfortable/uncomfortable). This structure can cause conceptual complexity about what the IAT measures, particularly when a counter category is not needed. Thus, using the Single‐Target Implicit Association Test (ST‐IAT), which allowed only one target category for pairing with attributes, this paper delineated the association measured in the conventional IAT for shyness: “self‐shy” or “others‐shy.” Seventy‐seven Japanese university students completed the self‐report shyness scale, the conventional IAT, and two ST‐IATs (i.e., self/others as target). Results showed that implicit shyness produced in the conventional IAT significantly and positively correlated with that in the self‐targeted ST‐IAT. Moreover, implicit shyness in the conventional IAT was significantly accounted for by those produced by the ST‐IAT with self as target and those calculated in the ST‐IAT with others as target in opposite directions.     

On the relationship between explicit and implicit self-concept of extraversion and neuroticism

Indirect methods such as the implicit association test (IAT) could complement traditional self-report questionnaires of personality traits. However, it is unclear whether IAT scores and self-report scores of nominally the same personality trait measure the same construct or overlapping but distinct constructs. To investigate how IAT and self-report personality scores relate to each other, we conducted a web-based data collection where participants completed self-report personality questionnaires (n = 432) and IATs for extraversion (n = 393) and neuroticism (n = 385). We found that extraversion self-report and IAT scores were more strongly correlated with each other than corresponding neuroticism scores. Overall, our findings suggest that although extraversion and neuroticism self-report and implicit measures are related, they do measure distinct constructs.     

Development and initial validation of an implicit measure of humility relative to arrogance

Data from two studies describe the development of an implicit measure of humility and support the idea that dispositional humility is a positive quality with possible benefits. In Study 1, 135 college students completed Humility and Self-Esteem Implicit Association Tests (IATs) and several self-report measures of personality self-concept. Fifty-four participants also completed the Humility IAT again approximately 2 weeks later and their humility was rated by close acquaintances. The Humility IAT was found to be internally and temporally consistent. Implicit humility correlated with self-reported humility relative to arrogance, implicit self-esteem, and narcissism (inversely). Humility was not associated with self-reported low self-esteem, pessimism, or depression. In fact, self-reported humility relative to arrogance correlated positively with self-reported self-esteem, gratitude, forgiveness, spirituality, and general health. In addition, self-reported humility and acquaintance-rated humility correlated positively; however, implicit humility and acquaintance-rated humility were not strongly associated. In Study 2, to examine the idea that humility might be associated with increased academic performance, we examined actual course grades of 55 college students who completed Humility and Self-Esteem IATs. Implicit humility correlated positively with higher actual course grades when narcissism, conscientiousness, and implicit self-esteem were simultaneously controlled. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

When old and frail is not the same: Dissociating category and stimulus effects in four implicit attitude measurement methods

It is not always clear whether implicit attitude measures assess the attitude towards single stimuli or the attitude towards categories. Nevertheless, this is important to know—both for interpreting implicit attitude effects and for selecting the test that is most appropriate for individual research aims. We investigated this for four implicit measures: the standard Implicit Association Test (IAT), the IAT-recoding free (IAT-RF), and two versions of the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST, identification (ID)-EAST). Effects in the standard IAT reflect evaluations of categories and single stimuli, whereas the IAT-RF measures attitudes towards categories only. Both versions of the EAST measure evaluations of single stimuli independently from the evaluation of categories. Three different effect sources are distinguished: attitudes towards single stimuli (IAT; EAST and ID-EAST), attitudes towards target categories (IAT and IAT-RF), and processes of recoding (IAT), which do not necessarily reflect attitudes.     

Psychometric Properties of Two Implicit Associations Tests measuring Adult Attachment

Adult attachment style has consequences for mental health, interpersonal functioning and emotion regulation. This occurs partly deliberately, also referred to as explicit, and partly on an automatic level outside of conscious awareness, also referred to as implicit. Whereas explicit adult attachment can be assessed with self-report instruments, measurement of implicit adult attachment requires indirect methods. This paper describes the psychometric properties of two Implicit Association Tests measuring general adult attachment in a population sample. The study evaluated the reliability and the validity of the Avoidant Attachment IAT (ANX-IAT) and the Anxious Attachment IAT (AVOID-IAT). Validity was evaluated against self-report measures of adult attachment style (RQ), psychopathology (SQ-48), and well-being (MHC-SF). The split-half reliabilities of both IATs were good; the test-retest reliability of the ANX-IAT was adequate; however the AVOID-IAT had low test-retest reliability. Both IATs did not explain variance in psychopathology additional to explicit measures. The AVOID-IAT showed added value over explicit measurement of avoidant attachment in explaining variance in well-being, particularly regarding emotional and psychological well-being. The ANX-IAT did not explain variance in any measure of well-being additional to the explicit measure of anxious attachment. Our findings provide a basis from which more valid IATs measuring general adult attachment can be developed. Furthermore, they suggest that implicit avoidant attachment might be related to well-being, particularly emotional and psychological well-being. However, further research is needed to investigate the role of implicit general adult attachment in mental health and to optimize the two IATs in terms of validity before clinical use is recommended.     

Reliability and validity of the Single‐Target IAT (ST‐IAT): assessing automatic affect towards multiple attitude objects

In contrast to the original Implicit Association Test (IAT), the Single‐Target Implicit Association Test (ST‐IAT) measures the evaluation of a target object without the need to simultaneously evaluate a counter‐category. The present research investigates (a) whether position within a series of several ST‐IATs affects reliability and validity, and (b) whether the ST‐IAT exhibits adequate construct validity if the target objects are closely interrelated. We address these questions by taking five interrelated yet distinct political parties in Germany as an exemplary domain. The ST‐IAT reliably and validly assessed attitudes towards political parties (Study 1). Serial position effects did not affect the results. The ST‐IATs mostly captured a specific party evaluation and exhibited discriminant validity. At the same time, discriminant validity was limited among parties within one wing of the political left–right spectrum that underlies implicit and explicit party evaluations (Study 2). If used with caution, the ST‐IAT can be a valuable supplement to implicit measures in the case of multiple single‐target assessments. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do features of stimuli influence IAT effects?

The Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) is a categorization task intended to measure the strength of associations between concepts. The present research investigated the influence of individual stimuli on IAT effects. Exploring implicit attitudes of East and West Germans, we systematically manipulated relatedness of target stimuli to the attribute dimension and, simultaneously, relatedness of attribute stimuli to the target dimension. Two experiments demonstrate the influence of stimulus associations as one source that drives IAT effects. Depending on the strength and the direction of these cross-category associations, the result was either stronger IAT effects or a decline of IAT effects. Implications for theoretical models as well as for the interpretation of IAT effects are discussed.     

The mere acceptance effect: Can it influence responses on racial Implicit Association Tests?

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is designed to measure the strength of mental association between each of a pair of target categories (e.g., Black vs. White) and each of a pair of attributes (e.g., negative vs. positive). Recent work on the mere acceptance effect shows that, if one of the categories is the focus of attention, then an apparent preference for the focal category can emerge on the IAT, even when no such preference actually exists. It has been suggested that mere acceptance could influence responding on names-based racial IATs, perhaps leading to an exaggeration of anti-Black/pro-White bias. Whether such IATs can be influenced by a mere acceptance effect is unknown, though. By manipulating whether “Black” or “White” was the focal category on a names-based racial IAT, the present studies addressed this very issue. The results were consistent with the operation of mere acceptance effects, but not effects large enough to fully explain the appearance of bias on the IAT.     

内隐自尊效应及内隐自尊与外显自尊的关系

研究运用内隐联想测验对内隐自尊进行了研究和测量,同时还运用结构方程建模对外显自尊和内隐自尊的结构关系进行了研究,结果表明：(1)东方文化下内隐自尊是存在的,个体无意识中对自我持有一种积极的评价,但强度不如西方个体。(2)内隐自尊与外显自尊是相对独立的两个不同的结构,二者间仅存在低的正相关。     

内隐联想测验“内隐性”的可控性研究

在许多社会科学研究中,社会称许性会对研究的效度产生不良影响。研究者希望能得到被试的真实态度和反应,从而极力避免这种社会称许性偏见。内隐测量工具的一个主要目的是让研究者能够获得未加任何粉饰的态度测量结果从而消除和避免自我表现和社会称许性。本文通过四个实验考察了内隐联想测验的可掩饰性、掩饰的持久性、掩饰的条件化和IAT经验的迁移性,结果显示：（1）被试可以通过一定的反应策略来掩饰其真实的内隐态度,从而使所测得的个体内隐态度和群体内隐态度失真,典型的反应策略是均衡相容和不相容任务的反应速度;（2）内隐联想测验的可掩饰性需以先前的IAT经验为基础,且IAT经验无需属于相同的测验范畴,对IAT原理的掌握将有助于被试成功地实施掩饰;（3）内隐联想测验的可掩饰性具有一定的时效性,先前的IAT经验越久远,则成功掩饰的可能性越低;总之,内隐联想测验并不能彻底避免社会称许性。     

Novel attitudes can be faked on the Implicit Association Test

We asked participants to imagine that a researcher would provide them with positive or negative information about fictitious social groups. Half of the participants were asked to act in such a way that they would conform to the expectations of the researcher. The other participants were asked to behave in the manner opposite to what the researcher expected. Participants then completed an IAT designed to measure the newly formed attitudes toward the fictitious social groups. The direction of the IAT effect depended on the faking instructions. The results call for caution when using the IAT to study the development of implicit attitudes.     

Predicting the Vote through Implicit and Explicit Attitudes: A Field Research

Using the data collected by Itanes on a sample of the Italian population, representative according to the main sociodemographic variables, we analyzed the relations between voting intention, explicit and implicit political attitudes, and voting behavior. Participants (N = 1,377) were interviewed twice, both before and after the 2006 Italian National Election. The implicit attitudes (measured using the IAT) were substantially as effective as voting intention, and more effective than the explicit attitudes towards the main Italian political leaders, in forecasting the Election official results. When used to predict participants' voting behavior, the IAT added a significant, although slight, power to voting intention and explicit attitude. Inconsistency between explicit and implicit attitudes exerted a negative influence on the probability of having decided one's voting behavior in the preelectoral poll; however, among undecided participants, it did not significantly influence the probability of delaying one's voting decision and that of actually casting a valid vote. Limits and possible developments of this research are discussed.     

Conceptual Organization of Self-representation: A Self-similarity Heuristic for Novel Person Representations

Implicit measures have revealed that cognitive representations of familiar individuals share associations with self-concept; however, this has yet to be established for novel individuals. We examined how self-similarity affects representation of information learned about new individuals. A novel version of the implicit association test (IAT), the self-similarity IAT, was developed to estimate the extent to which cognitive representations of new self-similar and self-dissimilar individuals are associated with self-representation. Categorization was faster when the self-similar individual was paired with self, not only for trait words related to the novel individuals, but also for unrelated demographic information pertaining only to self. This provides the first evidence using an implicit task that self-similarity may act as a heuristic for creating representations of new individuals.     

IAT在内隐助人态度上的应用

内隐联想测验（Implicit Association Test）是研究内隐社会认知的一种新方法,根据内隐联想测验的基本原理,采用IAT对内隐助人态度进行了研究。主要采用词汇测验,目标概念是助人性和非助人性词汇,属性概念是积极词和消极词。通过比较目标概念和属性概念在不同联结情况下被试完成分类任务所用的反应时之差,来确定其是否具有倾向于助人的内隐态度。结果发现：1）IAT词汇测验中,助人性信息和积极性词汇之间的平均反应时小于助人性信息和消极性词汇之间的平均反应时,且差异显著;2）IAT测验中,男女被试间无显著性差异。研究表明,IAT可以应用于内隐助人态度的研究。     

Plausible assumptions, questionable assumptions and post hoc rationalizations: Will the real IAT, please stand up?

In a recent article, we described psychometric limitations to the Implicit Association Test (IAT). These limitations restrict the utility of this measure and render it problematic for testing many psychological theories that posit a causal role for implicit attitudes. Past failures to recognize this may have promoted faulty conclusions in the literature. In a critique of our article, Nosek and Sriram rejected our entire analysis. They asserted that our original article was based on faulty assumptions and argued that the IAT performs nicely when these assumptions are replaced by other, more plausible assumptions. We show that these plausible assumptions have all the hallmarks of post hoc rationalizations. They make little theoretical sense, are buttressed by deceptive statistical practices, contradict statements these same researchers have made in the past and do little to advance research and theory on implicit attitudes. We close by considering the vigor with which IAT researchers have dismissed meaningful criticisms of their measure.     

Single-attribute implicit association tests (SA-IAT) for the assessment of unipolar constructs. The case of sociosexuality

A major problem with Implicit Association Tests (IATs) is that they require bipolar attributes (e.g., good-bad). Thus, IAT effects for an attribute category can be interpreted only relative to an opposite category. Problems arise if there is no clear opposite category; in this case, a neutral category can be used, although it induces systematic error variance and thus reduces validity. The present study suggests that this problem can be solved using single-attribute IATs (SA-IATs). Sociosexuality (the tendency to engage in uncommitted sex) was expected to be related at the implicit level to stronger stranger-sex associations relative to partner-sex associations. An IAT was constructed that used conversation as a neutral attribute; it showed satisfactory reliability but only low correlations with explicit sociosexuality. An alternative SA-IAT with sex as the only attribute showed a similar reliability but higher correlations with explicit sociosexuality.     

Pervasiveness and correlates of implicit attitudes and stereotypes

http://implicit.harvard.edu/ was created to provide experience with the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a procedure designed to measure social knowledge that may operate outside awareness or control. Significant by-products of the website's existence are large datasets contributed to by the site's many visitors. This article summarises data from more than 2.5 million completed IATs and self-reports across 17 topics obtained between July 2000 and May 2006. In addition to reinforcing several published findings with a heterogeneous sample, the data help to establish that: (a) implicit preferences and stereotypes are pervasive across demographic groups and topics, (b) as with self-report, there is substantial inter-individual variability in implicit attitudes and stereotypes, (c) variations in gender, ethnicity, age, and political orientation predict variation in implicit and explicit measures, and (d) implicit and explicit attitudes and stereotypes are related, but distinct.     

IAT效应的心理机制研究述评

介绍了IAT效应的心理机制的主要理论,包括概念联结提取模型、刺激-反应匹配理论、随机游动模型、任务集切换代价理论和图形-背景不对称性理论,并提出除概念联结提取模型外,其他理论关注另外可能的因素对IAT效应的作用,从而间接否定IAT效应和概念联结的对应联系,消解了IAT作为内隐测量方法的有效性。最后分析了这些理论的不足,认为IAT研究需要深入探讨个体在IAT反应中的心理活动过程。     

内隐关系评估程序(IRAP)：测量原理及应用

内隐关系评估程序(Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, 简称IRAP)是基于关系结构理论直接测量社会认知、信念或态度的新内隐测量方法, 具备一定的可靠性和有效性, 并与其它相关测量方法的适用性存在一定差异。不同的理论模型为IRAP的不同效应提供了解释。IRAP最初应用于临床诊断性研究, 新近已扩展到自我、社会认知、群体和态度等研究领域。进一步验证不同形式IRAP的信效度、探究IRAP的心理机制及产生的心理效应、在不同领域发挥IRAP的方法优势等将是未来研究的重要方向。