Center for Behavioral Decision Research

CBDR : Seminar Series : Seminar by Joachim Vosgerau

Order Effects in the Implicit Association Test

	presented by Joachim Vosgerau (Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper))


	Thursday, October 9	link to paper
	12pm
	Porter 223D	link to Speaker's Site

	Abstract:

	I review the Implicit Association Test (IAT), its use in psychology, marketing, and practice, and the methodology and validity issues surrounding it. I then focus on a validity problem that has not been investigated so far, so-called order-effects. In study 1, an IAT-effect is observed when the ‘compatible’ block precedes the ‘incompatible’ block, but not when the ‘compatible’ block follows the ‘incompatible’ block. In studies 2 and 3, the IAT-effect changes its sign when the order of the blocks is reversed. These order effects are caused by cognitive inertia, the difficulty in switching from one categorization rule to the opposite categorization rule. Cognitive inertia distorts individual IAT-scores and thus correlations between IAT-scores and predictor variables. While the common practice of counterbalancing block-order between-subjects does not cancel out these distortions, study 4 shows that counterbalancing block-order repeatedly within-subjects can eliminate order effects. I conclude that researchers should either interpret IAT-scores on the aggregate level or, when individual IAT-scores and correlations are of interest, counterbalance block-order repeatedly within-subjects.

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