A Meta-Analysis on the Correlation Between the Implicit Association Test and Explicit Self-Report Measures

Abstract

Theoretically, low correlations between implicit and explicit measures can be due to (a) motivational biases in explicit self reports, (b) lack of introspective access to implicitly assessed representations, (c) factors influencing the retrieval of information from memory, (d) method-related characteristics of the two measures, or (e) complete independence of the underlying constructs. The present study addressed these questions from a meta-analytic perspective, investigating the correlation between the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and explicit self-report measures. Based on a sample of 126 studies, the mean effect size was .24, with approximately half of the variability across correlations attributable to moderator variables. Correlations systematically increased as a function of (a) increasing spontaneity of self-reports and (b) increasing conceptual correspondence between measures. These results suggest that implicit and explicit measures are generally related but that higher order inferences and lack of conceptual correspondence can reduce the influence of automatic associations on explicit self-reports.

Explicit- and Implicit Bullying Attitudes in Relation to Bullying Behavior

“…This is in accordance with previous research that most often finds only small or nonsignificant relations between implicit-and explicit attitudes (e.g., Hofmann et al 2005;Perugini and Prestwich 2007).…”

“…During the past decade there has been a great deal of research investigating the validity of the IAT in predicting behavior, including research into moderating the effects (e.g. Hofmann et al 2005) and research into the influence of different varieties of the IAT with respect to the outcomes measured. For example, it has been found that a slightly changed "personalized" IAT assessed in somewhat different associations than the "standard" IAT (Houben and Wiers 2007;Nosek and Hansen 2008;Olson and Fazio 2004).…”

Evaluative conditioning in humans: A meta-analysis.

“…Specifically, affective priming measures have been repeatedly criticized for their low reliability (e.g., Cunningham, Preacher, & Banaji, 2001), and these differences may account for large portions of this moderator effect. Note, however, that an interpretation in terms of reliability faces some difficulties in explaining the gap between the magnitude of EC effects for self-report as compared with IAT measures because internal consistencies of the IAT typically are around .80 (e.g., Hofmann, Gawronski, Gschwendner, Le, & Schmitt, 2005) and thus similar to those commonly obtained for self-reports.…”

Mental chronometry and individual differences: Modeling reliabilities and correlations of reaction time means and effect sizes

“…5 conditions may be a measure of the strength of the semantic associations between categories (but see Blanton et al, 2006). This RT difference measure is thought to be implicit because it is extracted from performance measures rather than explicit questions about attitudes, and such RT difference scores are often correlated with corresponding explicit attitude measures (for a recent review and meta-analysis, see Hofmann et al, 2005). Moreover, the difference seems to be based on opposing processes, because stronger semantic associations would speed responses with associated categories and slow responses with unassociated categories.…”