Abstract
The implicit association test (IAT) is widely used to measure evaluative associations towards groups or the self but is influenced by other traits. Siegel, Dougherty, and Huber (2012, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology) found that manipulating cognitive control via false feedback (Study 3) changed the degree to which the IAT was related to cognitive control versus evaluative associations. We conducted two replications of this study and a mini meta-analysis. Null-hypothesis tests, meta-analysis, and a small telescope approach demonstrated weak to no support for the original hypotheses. We conclude that the original findings are unreliable and that both the original study and our replications do not provide evidence that manipulating cognitive control affects IAT scores.
Highlights
The implicit association test (IAT) is widely used to measure evaluative associations towards groups or the self but is influenced by other traits. Siegel, Dougherty, and Huber (2012, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology) found that manipulating cognitive control via false feedback (Study 3) changed the degree to which the IAT was related to cognitive control versus evaluative associations
Analysis (Goh et al, 2016) and Simonsohn’s (2015) small telescope approach. The latter is a framework for interpreting replication studies based on effect size estimates and sample sizes from the original study
These results decrease our confidence in our original results that cognitive control impacts IAT performance or that its influence on the IAT can be manipulated by false feedback
Summary
The implicit association test (IAT) is widely used to measure evaluative associations towards groups or the self but is influenced by other traits. Siegel, Dougherty, and Huber (2012, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology) found that manipulating cognitive control via false feedback (Study 3) changed the degree to which the IAT was related to cognitive control versus evaluative associations. Salience asymmetries among stimuli (Rothermund & Wentura, 2004), environmental associations (Karpinski & Hilton, 2001), base rates (Johnson & Chopik, 2019), task switching skill (Mierke & Klauer, 2003), faking responses (Röhner & Ewers, 2016), and cognitive control (Siegel et al, 2012) may all impact IAT scores, independent of personally held associations. The IAT was designed to indirectly measure associations by bypassing potential biases in self-report methods (Greenwald et al, 1998) This is accomplished by instructing participants to respond quickly, reducing their ability to control their responses. This relationship was attenuated for participants with high levels of cognitive control
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