10,800 research outputs found
How to like yourself better, or chocolate less: changing implicit attitudes with one IAT task
Full text linkThe current paper introduces a novel feature of Implicit Association Tests (IATs) by demonstrating their potential to change implicit attitudes. We assume that such changes are driven by associative learning mechanisms caused by carrying out an IAT task. Currently, evaluative conditioning appears to be the only widespread paradigm for changing implicit attitudes. An IAT task could provide an alternative. In two experiments, participants initially reacted to only one IAT task. Implicit preferences subsequently assessed with different implicit measures depended on the initial IAT task. This was shown for implicit self-esteem and for attitudes towards well-known candy brands. Findings are discussed in relation to task-order effects in IATs
The Impact of Stroop Interference and the Simon Effect on Implicit Association Test Performance
Full text linkThe implicit association test (IAT) is a method used to examine associations individuals make between concepts and evaluations (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). The typical finding with the IAT is that RTs are faster when the concepts and evaluations share the same response key. While the IAT has been used to examine a variety of associations, factors influencing these associations are still under consideration. For instance, Klauer et al. (2010) examined aspects of cognitive control in the IAT. They included measures related to switching mental sets, inhibition of responses, and working memory capacity. They found that switching between mental sets was related to IAT performance. In this experiment, participants completed a Simon task, Stroop task, and the flower-insect IAT. Participants showed typical Simon effect and Stroop interference. IAT results were consistent with Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998). While covarying Simon performance had no impact on the IAT, covarying Stroop performance did reduce the size of associations found between flowers and insects across conditions. These results suggest that the ability to inhibit one response in favor of another contributes to IAT findings
Implicit Environmental Attitudes: Critique and Technique to Promote Awareness
Get PDFopen access articleAttitudes toward the environment are understood in psychological science as the result of separate mental systems, one conscious and the other unconscious, and capable of affecting behavior outside of awareness. For example, the common incongruity between what people say about global sustainability and what they do about the environment has been explicated by
the influence of implicit environmental attitudes. This study examined the operational adequacy of the commonly used Implicit Association Test (IAT) by directly asking participants to report their recognition of behavioral influences whilst performing an IAT. An analytic technique of awareness assessment was introduced to improve on traditional post-experimental
questioning, by requiring a constrained report that provided introspective access to task-related knowledge in awareness. Results revealed participants were very aware of their IAT response latencies, they accurately recognized IAT features that produced those latencies, and the validity of this awareness predicted their test scores, challenging the claim to attitude effects
of which individuals are unaware. Thus, the critical evaluation showed the IAT method to be inadequate as a measure of environmental attitudes that are implicit. Applications of the awareness assessment technique are discussed for evaluating tests of implicit cognition, and for promoting individual mindfulness of one’s own environmental attitude
The Role of Explicit Categorization in the Implicit Association Test
Get PDFThe present study investigated how task-irrelevant attributes of a stimulus affected responses in a multi-attribute version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Experiment 1, participants categorized images of Black and White male and female individuals on the basis of either race or gender. Both the race and gender of the individuals affected task performance regardless of which attribute was currently relevant to performing the task, yielding the IAT effects on both attributes. However, the influences of a task-irrelevant attribute depended on whether the taskrelevant attribute was categorized compatibly or incompatibly with the underlying implicit biases. These results suggest that individuals are still categorized implicitly based on taskirrelevant social attributes and that the explicit categorization required in the standard IAT has a considerable impact on implicit social biases. Experiment 2 considered a third, non-social attribute (the color of the picture frame) and reproduced task-irrelevant IAT effects and their dependence on explicit categorization. However, Experiments 3 and 4 suggested that the taskirrelevant IAT effects based on social attributes are determined by whether the task-relevant attribute is a social or non-social attribute. The results raise fundamental questions about the basic assumptions underpinning the interpretations of the results from the IAT
Is Vegetarianism a Diet? Implicit Associations of Vegetarians and Omnivores on a Vegetarian Campus
Get PDFThis study examines the differences in implicit attitudes toward meat and vegetables in religious vegetarians and omnivores on a religious, vegetarian campus. Response times and error rates from the Implicit Association Task (IAT) were used to examine whether external diet commitments consistently affect internal attitudes. We found a significant main effect of diet on IAT responses, but no significant interaction of diet with a self-control depleting task. Thus, participants\u27 explicit responses were by far the strongest predictor of their implicit attitudes, demonstrating that, unlike short-term dietary choices, long-term dietary choices are robust in the face of self-control depletion
Implicit attitudes towards smoking predict long-term relapse in abstinent smokers
Get PDFIt has previously been argued that implicit attitudes toward substance-related cues drive addictive behavior. Nevertheless, it remains an open question whether behavioral markers of implicit attitude activation can be used to predict long-term relapse.
The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between implicit attitudes toward smoking-related cues and long-term relapse in abstaining smokers.
Implicit attitudes toward smoking-related cues were assessed by means of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the evaluative priming task (EPT). Both measures were completed by a group of smokers who volunteered to quit smoking (patient group) and a group of nonsmokers (control group). Participants in the patient group completed these measures twice: once prior to smoking cessation and once after smoking cessation. Relapse was assessed by means of short telephone survey, 6 months after completion of the second test session.
EPT scores obtained prior to smoking cessation were related to long-term relapse and correlated with self-reported nicotine dependence as well as daily cigarette consumption. In contrast, none of the behavioral outcome measures were found to correlate with the IAT scores.
These findings corroborate the idea that implicit attitudes toward substance-related cues are critically involved in long-term relapse. A potential explanation for the divergent findings obtained with the IAT and EPT is provided
Neural patterns of the implicit association test
Get PDFThe Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a reaction time based categorization task that measures the differential associative strength between bipolar targets and evaluative attribute concepts as an approach to indexing implicit beliefs or biases. An open question exists as to what exactly the IAT measures, and here EEG (Electroencephalography) has been used to investigate the time course of ERPs (Event-related Potential) indices and implicated brain regions in the IAT. IAT-EEG research identifies a number of early (250–450 ms) negative ERPs indexing early-(pre-response) processing stages of the IAT. ERP activity in this time range is known to index processes related to cognitive control and semantic processing. A central focus of these efforts has been to use IAT-ERPs to delineate the implicit and explicit factors contributing to measured IAT effects. Increasing evidence indicates that cognitive control (and related top-down modulation of attention/perceptual processing) may be components in the effective measurement of IAT effects, as factors such as physical setting or task instruction can change an IAT measurement. In this study we further implicate the role of proactive cognitive control and top-down modulation of attention/perceptual processing in the IAT-EEG. We find statistically significant relationships between D-score (a reaction-time based measure of the IAT-effect) and early ERP-time windows, indicating where more rapid word categorizations driving the IAT effect are present, they are at least partly explainable by neural activity not significantly correlated with the IAT measurement itself. Using LORETA, we identify a number of brain regions driving these ERP-IAT relationships notably involving left-temporal, insular, cingulate, medial frontal and parietal cortex in time regions corresponding to the N2- and P3-related activity. The identified brain regions involved with reduced reaction times on congruent blocks coincide with those of previous studies
Measuring sexual interest using a pictorial modified Stroop task, a pictorial Implicit Association Test, and a Choice Reaction Time task
Get PDFTasks that can successfully measure sexual interest have utility in forensic settings. Prior to use with problematic sexual interest however, work is needed in validating such tasks. This study focused on the measurement of non-deviant sexual interest. Eleven gay and fourteen straight participants each completed a pictorial Implicit Association Test (IAT), a pictorial modified Stroop task (P-MST) and a Choice Reaction Time (CRT) task. Each task was designed to tap into the sexual interest of participants. Stimuli were of males and females in bathing suits along with control images and sexual and non-sexual words. The IAT was most successful in differentiating between gay and straight participants. The P-MST also performed well, though the task’s position in the battery of tasks seemed to affect the results. The CRT tasks did not successfully show group differences. Theoretical and methodological implications of the effectiveness of the three tasks in tapping into sexual interest are discussed
Implicit Attitudes to Work and Leisure Among North American and Irish Individuals: A Preliminary Study
Get PDFThe current article reports the findings from two preliminary experiments investigating the
Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Implicit Relational Association Procedure (IRAP) as
measures of implicit attitudes in the domain of work and leisure among North American and
Irish individuals. The IAT and IRAP tasks involved responding under time pressure on a
computerized task, with response latency as the dependent variable. The IAT required participants
to categorize positively or negatively valenced words with stimuli associated with either Work
or Holidays. The IRAP required that participants confirm or deny that Work and Holidays are
similar or opposite to positively and negatively valenced words. Participants also completed
an explicit measure consisting of a Likert-based questionnaire. In both Experiments, citizens
of the United States of America produced performances on the IAT and IRAP that indicated
more negative attitudes to work and more positive attitudes to holidays than both Canadian
and Irish citizens. Responses on the explicit measures did not accord with this overall pattern
of group differences. The results support the use of the IRAP as a measure of implicit attitudes
and furthermore the findings appear to be generally consistent with a recent large-scale survey
of attitudes to work across 23 countrie
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