Implicit Association Test

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The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is an experimental methodology within the discipline of social psychology designed to measure the strength of association between mental representations of objects in memory. The IAT requires the rapid categorization of various stimulus objects, such that easier pairings (and faster responses) are interpreted as being more strongly associated in memory than more difficult pairings (slower responses).

The IAT is a tool in the development of theories of implicit social cognition, a body of results that suggest that many cognitive processes that affect behavior are unconscious in nature and are inaccessible to observation by the actor. These implicit processes affect perception, influence behavior, and color interpretation of past events. The IAT has been profiled in major media outlets (e.g. in the Washington Post) and in the popular book "Blink". The most prominent implicit association test is one that measures bias on race. Other popular tests look at gender and age bias.

A recent meta-analysis has suggested that the IAT is a better predictor of some forms of behavior (e.g. discrimination) than traditional 'explicit' self-report methods, but almost all of the studies cited in this paper used unusually weak measures of explicit attitudes (e.g., "feeling thermometers) ^[1]. The IAT has been used to measure attitudes toward objects in the environment, self-esteem, self-identity, and stereotypes. In applied settings, the IAT has been used in the domains of marketing and industrial psychology.

[edit] Criticism and Controversy

The IAT has engendered some controversy (e.g. in the Wall Street Journal; Science News Article). More specifically, the IAT has been interpreted as assessing familiarity^[2], perceptual salience asymmetries^[3], or mere cultural knowledge regardless of personal endorsement of that knowledge^[4]. A more recent critique centered on the lack of any empirical research that can justify the diagnostic statements that are given to the lay public ^[5]. Proponents of the IAT have responded to these charges ^[6], but the debate is ongoing.

[edit] External links

• Project Implicit - Do the test
• [1]
• Project Implicit Research Site
• Project Implicit in the media
• IAT Validity Debates Implicit Association Tests, Validity debates, reaction to validity criticisms from the creators of the IAT. Includes PDFs of original papers critiquing the IAT as well as rebuttals.
• "Screen Test", Slate.com, January 26, 2006.
• JournalReview.org - An on-line journal club where studies related to Implicit Association Tests can be discussed. An Example
• Science News Article
• American Psychologist Article
• Wall Street Post article
• Test of Unconscious Identification- similar to the IAT using open source softwaremoj

[edit] References

1. ^ http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/pdf/IAT.Meta-analysis.16Sep05.pdf
2. ^ http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/iat_validity.htm#famil
3. ^ http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/IATmaterials/PDFs/R&W.JEPG(2004).pdf
4. ^ http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/IATmaterials/PDFs/Karpinski&Hilton.JPSP(2001).pdf
5. ^ http://psychology.tamu.edu/Faculty/blanton/bj.2006.arbitrary.pdf
6. ^ http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/iat_validity.htm