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Originalia

Items’ Cross-Category Associations as a Confounding Factor in the Implicit Association Test

Published Online:September 01, 2006https://doi.org/10.1026//0949-3946.48.2.123

Abstract

Abstract. The introduction of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) has stimulated numerous research activities. The IAT is supposed to measure the degree of association between concepts. Instances have to be assigned to these concepts by pressing appropriate keys as quickly as possible. The reaction time difference between certain conditions, termed the IAT effect, is used as an indicator of the degree of the concepts’ association. We tested the hypothesis that the degree of association between one concept (or category) and the instances of the other presented concept also influences reaction times. In our experiment, the instances in the target categories, male and female names, were kept constant. The adjectives in the evaluative categories were manipulated: Either the pleasant adjectives were female-associated and the unpleasant adjectives were male-associated, or vice versa. These stereotypic associations were indeed found to exert a substantial influence on the size of the IAT effect. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that the IAT effect may be interpreted as a pure measure of the degree of association between concepts.


Konfundierungen durch Querassoziationen im Implicit Association Test

Zusammenfassung. Die Einführung des Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998), der den Assoziationsgrad von Konzepten messen soll, hat zahlreiche Forschungsaktivitäten nach sich gezogen. Im IAT sollen diesen Konzepten durch Tastendruck möglichst schnell Instanzen zugeordnet werden. Der Reaktionszeitunterschied zwischen verschiedenen Bedingungen, als IAT-Effekt bezeichnet, wird als Indikator für den Assoziationsgrad der Konzepte betrachtet. Im beschriebenen Experiment testeten wir die Hypothese, daß zusätzlich der Assoziationsgrad zwischen einem Konzept und den Instanzen des anderen die Reaktionszeiten beeinflusst. Dazu hielten wir die Instanzen des Zielkonzeptes, männliche und weibliche Vornamen, konstant, und manipulierten die evaluativen Adjektive: Entweder waren die angenehmen Adjektive zusätzlich weiblich assoziiert und die unangenehmen männlich, oder umgekehrt. Tatsächlich modifizierten diese stereotypen Assoziationen der Instanzen den IAT-Effekt erheblich. Dieser Befund ist nicht vereinbar damit, daß der IAT ausschließlich den Assoziationsgrad von Konzepten misst.

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