What Do Implicit Measures Tell Us?: Scrutinizing the Validity of Three Common Assumptions

Abstract

Experimental paradigms designed to assess "implicit" representations are currently very popular in many areas of psychology. The present article addresses the validity of three widespread assumptions in research using these paradigms: that (a) implicit measures reflect unconscious or introspectively inaccessible representations; (b) the major difference between implicit measures and self-reports is that implicit measures are resistant or less susceptible to social desirability; and (c) implicit measures reflect highly stable, older representations that have their roots in long-term socialization experiences. Drawing on a review of the available evidence, we conclude that the validity of all three assumptions is equivocal and that theoretical interpretations should be adjusted accordingly. We discuss an alternative conceptualization that distinguishes between activation and validation processes.

Making sense of the noise: Replication difficulties of Correll’s (2008) modulation of 1/f noise in a racial bias task

“…(Fazio & Olson, 2003). In this context, the general 1/f noise observed in our samples could be interpreted as being consistent with the theoretical position that implicit measures are not necessarily "process-pure" (Gawronski et al, 2007;Ranganath, Smith, & Nosek, 2008).…”

“…In this context, social psychologists have increasingly relied on implicit measures to assess individuals' racial attitudes -such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or the Weapon Identification Task (WIT) -which aim to overcome limitations of direct measures including socially desirable responding and introspective limits (Gawronski, LeBel, & Peters, 2007). Many of these implicit measures involve assessing individuals' reaction times (RTs) to a series of words or photos related to the attitude object (e.g., photos of African-American or Caucasian faces).…”

The self-regulation of automatic associations and behavioral impulses.

“…For example, dissociations between implicit measures and explicit measures of memory have been reinterpreted as dissociations between measures of perceptual processing and conceptual processing (e.g., Roediger, 1990). In a similar vein, dissociations between implicit measures and explicit measures of attitudes have been reinterpreted as being due to their lack of structural correspondence (e.g., Payne, Burkley, & Stokes, 2008; see also Gawronski et al, 2007).…”

The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure: Exploring the Impact of Private Versus Public Contexts and the Response Latency Criterion on Pro-White and Anti-Black Stereotyping Among White Irish Individuals

“…The basic assumption behind implicit measures is that they are immune, or at least far less sensitive, to such context effects. Recently, however, the IAT has been found to be susceptible to a public/private manipulation (Boysen, Vogel, & Madon, 2006; see Gawronski, LeBel, & Peters, 2007, for a review that questions the common assumption that implicit measures are immune or less sensitive to social desirability concerns).…”