Implicit-association test
The implicit-association test is an assessment intended to detect subconscious associations between mental representations of objects in memory. Its best-known application is the assessment of implicit stereotypes held by test subjects, such as associations between particular racial categories and stereotypes about those groups. The test has been applied to a variety of belief associations, such as those involving racial groups, gender, sexuality, age, and religion but also the self-esteem, political views, and predictions of the test taker. The implicit-association test is the subject of significant academic and popular debate regarding its validity, reliability, and usefulness in assessing implicit bias.
The IAT was introduced in the scientific literature in 1998 by Anthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz. The IAT is now widely used in social psychology research and, to some extent, in clinical, cognitive, and developmental psychology research. More recently, the IAT has been used as an assessment in implicit bias trainings, which aim to reduce the unconscious bias and discriminatory behavior of participants.
History
Implicit cognition and measurement
In 1995, social psychology researchers Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji asserted that the idea of implicit and explicit memory can apply to social constructs as well. If memories that are not accessible to awareness can influence our actions, associations can also influence our attitudes and behavior. Thus, measures that tap into individual differences in associations of concepts should be developed. This would allow researchers to understand attitudes that cannot be measured through explicit self-report methods due to lack of awareness or social-desirability bias. In essence, the purpose of the IAT was to reliably assess individual differences in a manner producing large effect sizes. The first IAT article was published three years later in 1998.Since its original publication date, the seminal IAT article has been cited over 4,000 times, making it one of the most influential psychological developments over the past couple of decades. Furthermore, several variations in IAT procedure have been introduced to address test limitations, while numerous applications of the IAT were also developed, including versions investigating bias against obesity, suicide risk, romantic attachment, attitudes regarding sexuality, and political preferences, among others. Finally, as is characteristic of any psychological instrumentation, discussion and debate of the IAT's reliability and validity has continued since its introduction, particularly because these factors vary between different variations of the test.
Application and use
A computer-based measure, the IAT requires that users rapidly categorize two target concepts with an attribute, such that easier pairings are interpreted as more strongly associated in memory than difficult pairings.The IAT is thought to measure implicit attitudes: "introspectively unidentified traces of past experience that mediate favorable or unfavorable feeling, thought, or action toward social objects." In research, the IAT has been used to develop theories to understand implicit cognition. These processes may include memory, perception, attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Because the IAT requires that users make a series of rapid judgments, researchers believe that IAT scores may also reflect attitudes which people are unwilling to reveal publicly. The IAT may allow researchers to get around the difficult problem of social-desirability bias and for that reason it has been used extensively to assess people's attitudes towards commonly stigmatized groups, such as African Americans and individuals who identify as homosexual.
Procedure
Task 1 :
Task 2 :
Tasks 3 and 4 :
Task 5 :
Tasks 6 and 7 :
Example of a typical IAT procedure
A typical IAT procedure involves a series of seven tasks. In the first task, an individual is asked to categorize stimuli into two categories. For example, a person might be presented with a computer screen on which the word "Black" appears in the top left-hand corner and the word "White" appears in the top right-hand corner. In the middle of the screen a word, such as a first name, that is typically associated with either the categories of "Black" or "White". For each word that appears in the middle of the screen, the person is asked to sort the word into the appropriate category by pressing the appropriate left-hand or right-hand key. On the second task, the person would complete a similar sorting procedure with an attribute of some kind. For example, the word "Pleasant" might now appear in the top left-hand corner of the screen and the word "Unpleasant" in the top right-hand corner. In the middle of the screen would appear a word that is either pleasant or unpleasant. Once again, the person would be asked to sort each word as being either pleasant or unpleasant by pressing the appropriate key. On the third task, individuals are asked to complete a combined task that includes both the categories and attributes from the first two tasks. In this example, the words "Black/Pleasant" might appear in the top left-hand corner while the words "White/Unpleasant" would appear in the top right-hand corner. Individuals would then see a series of stimuli in the center of the screen consisting of either a name or word. They would be asked to press the left-hand key if the name or word belongs to the "Black/Pleasant" category or the right-hand key if it belongs to the "White/Unpleasant" category. The fourth task is a repeat of the third task but with more repetitions of the names, words, or images.
The fifth task is a repeat of the first task with the exception that the position of the two target words would be reversed. For example, "Black" would now appear in the top right-hand corner of the screen and "White" in the top left-hand corner. The sixth task would be a repeat of the third, except that the objects and subjects of study would be in opposite pairings from previous trials. In this case, "Black/Unpleasant" would now appear in the top right-hand corner and "White/Pleasant" would now appear in the top left-hand corner. The seventh task is a repeat of the sixth task but with more repetitions of the names, words, or images. If the categories under study are associated with the presented attributes to differing degrees, the pairing reflecting the stronger association should be easier for the participant. In the Black/White-Pleasant/Unpleasant example, a participant will be able to categorize more quickly when Black and Pleasant are paired together than when White and Pleasant are paired if they have more positive associations with Black people than with White people.
Variations of the IAT include the Go/No-go Association Test, the Brief-IAT and the Single-Category IAT. An idiographic approach using the IAT and the SC-IAT for measuring implicit anxiety showed that personalized stimulus selection did not affect the outcome, reliabilities and correlations to outside criteria.
The Go/No-go Association Test is a variation of the IAT that assesses implicit attitudes or beliefs by measuring the relationship between a target concept and two different extremes of an attribute. Specifically, the strength of relationship is assessed by how quickly the items belonging to the target category and specific attribute can be picked from surrounding distractor items that are not associated with the target concept or attribute. Respondents are required to press a key when they identify a stimulus that belongs to one of these categories, and not to press a key when they see stimuli that does not belong to those categories. The difference in ability to correctly associate the concept with the specific attributes is described to be the measure of automatic attitude. Unlike the IAT, which measures response latency, the GNAT measures accuracy in identifying the specific relationships between the target concept and specific attributes.
The Single Category IAT, also known as Single-Target IAT, is unique in that it uses one target category instead of the two required in the original IAT. During the ST-IAT, respondents complete a discrimination block of the evaluative stimuli. The second block consists of sorting target concepts and positive items with one response key and negative items with the other. In the last block, respondents are required to sort target stimuli and negative items together with one key, and positive items with the other key. In comparison to the IAT, which uses contrasts in latency between two concepts and two attributes, the ST-IAT focuses on latency differences in relation to one concept and two attributes.