Explicit Evidence on the Import of Implicit Attitudes: The IAT and Immigration Policy Judgments

Abstract

The implicit association test (IAT) is increasingly used to detect automatic attitudes. Yet a fundamental question remains about this measure: How well can it predict individual judgments? Though studies find that IAT scores shape individual evaluations, these inquiries do not account for an array of well-validated, theoretically relevant variables, thus raising the challenge of omitted variable bias. For scholars using the IAT, the risk here is one of misattributing to implicit attitudes what can be better explained by alternate and rigorous self-reports of explicit constructs. This paper examines the IAT's performance in the context of U.S. immigration politics. Using a representative web survey of adults, I demonstrate the IAT effectively captures implicit attitude toward Latino immigrants. Critically, I then show these attitudes substantively mold individual preferences for illegal and legal immigration policy, net of political ideology, socio-economic concerns, and well-established measures of intolerance toward immigrants, such as authoritarianism and ethnocentrism. Combined, these results suggest the IAT measures attitudes that are non-redundant and potent predictors of individual political judgments.

Holding on to our functional roots when exploring new intellectual islands: A voyage through implicit cognition research

“…As noted above, BIRRs can -in principle -not only take the form of a button press on an indirect behavioral task, but increased rates of blinking, eye contact, and ''spontaneous'' selection of stimuli given an appropriate history of learning. Likewise, EERRs are not restricted to written or oral responses on a questionnaire but can involve the decision to invite job applicants for an interview (Agerström & Rooth, 2011) or supporting exclusionary immigration policy proposals (Perez, 2010). From this perspective, the ability for one type of response (e.g., IAT performance) to predict another (amount of eye contact) is understood functionally as an instance of behavior-behavior relations.…”

Need for support or economic competition? Implicit associations with immigrants during the 2015 migrant crisis

“…The Single Category Implicit Association Test enabled us to disentangle the two groups outlined in news media reports. In line with Pérez (2010Pérez ( , 2016, our The dependent variable is the categorical SC-IAT measure. Coefficients at the top present relationships between economic competition vs. equally strong implicit associations with immigrants and need relative to competition; coefficients at the bottom refleect the relationship economic competition vs. need for support.…”

“…Further support for this assumption in the area of immigration studies has been provided by Pérez (2016Pérez ( , 2010: Pérez has shown that implicit attitudes towards Latino immigrants are indeed different from any alternative measure of intolerance towards foreigners. In other words, implicit attitudes measure a different facet of sentiments towards immigrants and have the power to influence policy preferences on immigration.…”

“…We use the recategorized SC-IAT measure as a predictor while including other common explanations for attitudes towards immigrants, as outlined above. Following Pérez (2010Pérez ( , 2016, we also specifically add an indicator of authoritarianism controlling …”

“…It also explores how these attitudes vary across survey respondents with different sociodemographic and attitudinal profiles. Following Pérez (2016Pérez ( , 2010 and including our SC-IAT measure in a model predicting preferences for immigration policy, we are further able to investigate the meaning of the implicit associations. We begin with a review of the literature on attitudes towards immigrants.…”