Using the implicit association test to measure age differences in implicit social cognitions.

Abstract

Two studies investigated the use of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & J. L. K. Schwartz, 1998) to study age differences in implicit social cognitions. Study I collected IAT (implicit) and explicit (self-report) measures of age attitudes, age identity, and self-esteem from young, young-old, and old-old participants. Study 2 collected IAT and explicit measures of attitudes toward flowers versus insects from young and old participants. Results show that the IAT provided theoretically meaningful insights into age differences in social cognitions that the explicit measures did not, supporting the value of the IAT in aging research. Results also illustrate that age-related slowing must be considered in analysis and interpretation of IAT measures.

Validity of the Salience Asymmetry Interpretation of the IAT: Comment on Rothermund and Wentura (2004)

“…These predictions were repeatedly confirmed in designs that used IAT measures of the various constructs. For additional reports that include such findings, see Aidman and Carroll (2003), Nosek, Banaji, and Greenwald (2002), Hummert, Garstka, O'Brien, Greenwald, and Mellott (2002), Jost, Pelham, and Carvallo (2002), and Rudman, Greenwald, and McGhee (2001). The accumulated evidence for validity of the salience asymmetry interpretation is at present modest.…”

Implicit Cognitive Distortions and Sexual Offending

“…In summary, being left or right handed made no difference to the effect, being generally fast or slow to respond also made no difference to the IAT effect (which measures relative differences). Likewise participant age differences (in this study) made no difference to the IAT effect (see Hummert, Garstka, O'Brien, Greenwald, & Mellott, 2002).…”

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“…Implicit attitudes are then determined by examining the facilitating effect on performance when a particular response (e.g., pressing a computer key with the right hand) is associated with both a specific category and the evaluative judgment assumed to be congruent with that category (e.g., old and unpleasant, young and pleasant) versus when the response is associated with evaluations that are incongruent with the category (e.g., young and unpleasant). In line with research using explicit means of evaluation, studies employing the IAT have found consistent negative evaluations of older adults when compared with young adults (Hummert et al, 2002;Karpinski & Hilton, 2001;. As an indication of the strength of these effects, Nosek et al (2002) noted that the negative implicit attitudes toward older adults obtained in their study were stronger than any of the others assessed, including those associated with race and gender.…”

“…For example, Hummert et al (2002) found consistently negative implicit attitudes about older adults across three age groups (18-29, 55-74, 75-93), but explicit judgments revealed more positive evaluations of older adults in the youngest group when compared to the two older groups. Nosek et al (2002) also demonstrated a dissociation between implicit and explicit attitudes, with negative explicit responses toward old being smaller than those observed with the implicit measure.…”