Is the Implicit Association Test a Valid and Valuable Measure of Implicit Consumer Social Cognition?

Abstract

This article discusses the need for more satisfactory implicit measures in consumer psychology and assesses the theoretical foundations, validity, and value of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a measure of implicit consumer social cognition. Study 1 demonstrates the IAT's sen sitivity to explicit individual differences in brand attitudes, ownership, and usage frequency, and shows their correlations with IAT-based measures of implicit brand attitudes and brand re lationship strength. In Study 2, the contrast between explicit and implicit measures of attitude toward the ad for sportswear advertisements portraying African American (Black) and Euro pean American (White) athlete-spokespersons revealed different patterns of responses to ex plicit and implicit measures in Black and White respondents. These were explained in terms of self-presentation biases and system justification theory. Overall, the results demonstrate that the IAT enhances our understanding of consumer responses, particularly when consumers are either unable or unwilling to identify the sources of influence on their behaviors or opinions.

Consumer persuasion: Indirect change and implicit balance

“…That is, the stronger the automatic associations between the self and female and the self and good, the stronger the automatic linkage between female and good. Also consistent with the implicit balance notion, subsequent work by Brunel, Tietje, and Greenwald (2004) revealed that Macintosh computer users showed stronger automatic evaluative associations for that brand relative to PC users, as revealed both in positivity and in self associations. Indeed, objects, products, and brands can be part of the self-concept and contribute to defining one's identity (e.g., Aaker, 1999;Belk, 1988;James, 1890;Kleine, Kleine, & Kernan, 1993;Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982).…”

“…Applying the implicit balance notion to the consumer domain, Brunel, Tietje, and Greenwald (2004) found that Macintosh users show more positive automatic evaluative associations for that brand relative to PC users. The present research has several advances over previous work on implicit balance.…”

“…Indeed, such measures have been shown to be useful in generating insight into consumer behavior processes (Perkins et al, 2008). For example, Brunel, Tietje, and Greenwald (2004) found that implicit measures can be useful in predicting brand recognition and preference, as well as product usage, above and beyond traditional explicit measures. Similarly, Maison, Greenwald, and Bruin (2004) showed that implicit measures can successfully discriminate consumers' preferences for different competing brands.…”

Anxiety and avoidance in psychogenic nonepileptic seizures: The role of implicit and explicit anxiety

“…Importantly, these cognitions can have a strong impact on physiological responses [35] and behavior [36]. Measures of implicit cognition aim to provide an index of an attitude or cognition without requiring a participant's awareness or conscious access to the attribute under investigation [37,38]. This is achieved through tasks where participants respond in an "automatic manner" (p. 347 [39]), with little or no opportunity for attentional con-trollability or self-monitoring [19,40,41].…”

Implicit Processing of Environmental Resources in Psychological Resilience

“…We suggest that the results may reflect an implicit preference for the companion in people without explicit recognition and utilization of companion resources. Many previous IAT studies showed implicit attitudinal preference in consumer behavior (Brunel, Tietje, & Greenwald, 2004), prejudice (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001;Dasgupta et al, 2000;Greenwald et al, 1998), and voting behavior (Arcuri, Castelli, Galdi, Zogmaister, & Amadori, 2008) independent of explicit attitudes. Similar to these previous findings, in our experiment, participants who do not have companions would have implicit attitudinal preference or desire for a companion.…”