Introduction to the special issue: Implicit measures of consumer response—the search for the Holy Grail of marketing research

Current information-processing models of sexual arousal imply that both controlled and automatic affective-motivational processes are critically involved in sexual responding and suggest that dysfunctional automatic processes may be involved in the development and persistence of sexual dysfunctions. Because (dysfunctional) automatic processes and responses cannot be adequately captured by common self-report measures, implicit performance-based measures have been developed to index these processes. This review provides an overview of studies that used implicit tasks in clinical sexual research, and critically evaluates the contribution and promise of these measures to improve our understanding of the mechanisms involved in sexual dysfunctions. 6 electronic main databases (AMED, MEDLINE, PsycArticles, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, and SocINDEX) were searched for studies involving implicit measurement techniques to measure automatic processes in clinical sex research. A series of studies examined if lowered (or heightened) attention for sex stimuli may be involved in low sexual arousal, low desire, and genital pain. Preliminary evidence showed that lowered attention is involved in low sexual arousal. The pattern with regard to desire and genital pain was mixed which may be due to heterogeneity in assessment instruments. A limited number of studies examined automatic memory associations with sexual cues. Preliminary evidence showed negative (sex-threat/sex-disgust) associations in women with genito-pelvic pain or penetration disorder, less positive associations in women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder, and sex-positive and sex-failure associations in men with sexual distress. Thus far, no studies have examined lowered (or heightened) automatic sexual approach tendencies related to sexual dysfunctions. Implicit measures showed some promise as tools to index automatic sex-relevant cognitive mechanisms in sexual dysfunctions. Yet, more systematic research and the development of psychometrically sound measures are critical for a more comprehensive evaluation of the relevance of implicit measures in clinical sex research and their usefulness as indices of individual differences in clinical practice. Hinzmann J, Borg C, de Jong PJ. Implicit Measures in Clinical Sex Research: A Critical Evaluation. Sex Med Rev 2020;8:531-541.

Implicit Association Test: Separating Transsituationally Stable and Variable Components of Attitudes toward Gay Men

This paper aims to understand how teachers’ attitudes are contributing to or hindering the educational inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Implicit and explicit measurement of the attitudes of fifty pre-service teachers towards ASD before and after a short-term training on Autism is presented. The explicit measure used was a Likert-type questionnaire, while the implicit measure was a Single Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT). After statistical analysis of the data, it was found that prospective teachers’ explicit attitudes were positive before the short-term training, and they were significantly better after it. Conversely, participants’ implicit attitudes were neutral before the short-term training, and no significant difference was found after it. Additionally, no statistically significant relation was obtained between explicit and implicit attitudes, either before or after training, which suggests that the used instruments measure different attitudinal constructs. According to the remaining findings, it is concluded that explicit attitudes may be more prone to social desirability bias than implicit ones, implying that future attitudes research regarding sensitive topics such as the educational inclusion of students with Autism should combine both measures. Moreover, implicit attitudes seem more difficult to change than explicit ones. Some implications for pre-service teacher education are discussed.

This paper aims to understand how teachers’ attitudes are contributing to or hindering the educational inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Implicit and explicit measurement of the attitudes of 50 pre-service teachers towards ASD before and after a short-term training on Autism is presented. The explicit measure used was a Likert-type questionnaire, while the implicit measure was a Single Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT). After statistical analysis of the data, it was found that prospective teachers’ explicit attitudes were positive before the short-term training, and they were significantly better after it. Conversely, participants’ implicit attitudes were neutral before the short-term training, and no significant difference was found after it. Additionally, no statistically significant relation was obtained between explicit and implicit attitudes, either before or after training, which suggests that the used instruments measure different attitudinal constructs. According to the remaining findings, it is concluded that explicit attitudes may be more prone to social desirability bias than implicit ones, implying that future attitudes research regarding sensitive topics such as the educational inclusion of students with Autism should combine both measures. Moreover, implicit attitudes seem more difficult to change than explicit ones. Some implications for pre-service teacher education are discussed.

The present study evaluated implicit and explicit attitudes toward Barack Obama in a student sample assessed during the 2008 election season. Implicit measurement was based on the Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC‐IAT), in which participants categorized photographs of Obama as target objects associated with positive and negative evaluation categories. The relative darkness of Obama's image in the photographs was manipulated to accentuate racial cues. The results showed significant differences in implicit and explicit attitudes toward Obama between self‐identified conservative and liberal students, as well as significant relationships between implicit and explicit measures and between implicit measures and modern racist attitudes. A stronger negative associational bias was found for conservative students, but not their liberal counterparts, to darker images of Obama in the implicit association test. The results underscore the importance of taking individual differences into account in measuring implicit responses to target stimuli. The results also support the convergent validity of implicit measures of attitudes toward a prominent political figure, as well as the construct validity of the SC‐IAT. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The problem of accounting automatic affective and cognitive processes as bases for implicit attitudes towards brands, as well as methods for measuring them, is poorly developed. An analysis of previous research shows that the study of attitudes towards brands in terms of their affective and cognitive components is mainly carried out using self-assessment procedures. The aim of this research is to measure the affective and cognitive bases of implicit and explicit attitudes towards brands of domestic and foreign foods. Participants N = 131, aged 17-57 (Mdn = 31). Measures: specifically designed methodically balanced procedures for measuring implicit and explicit attitudes towards food brands: affective and cognitive implicit associative tests (IAT), Self-Concept IAT; emotional and cognitive explicit procedures and demographic questionnaires. The consistency of the results of implicit and explicit measurements is shown. The results of the measurements of implicit attitudes using three IAT procedures are related too. Using factor analysis, the independence of the constructs of explicit and implicit attitudes towards brands was confirmed, which is interpreted in terms of the theory of double attitudes. The greatest contribution to the implicit attitude, measured by the Self-concept IAT, is made by the cognitive component of attitude, which represents the implicit brand associations of domestic or foreign foods with attributes that characterize the price and quality of the foods. All implicit assessments obtained separately using the affective and cognitive procedures of the IAT, as well as the Self-concept IAT, testified in favour of the preference for foods of domestic brands. However, explicit assessments of the frequency of consumption of the brands under consideration did not reveal preferences for any of them. This discrepancy is seen not only as evidence of a possible ambivalent interaction between affective and cognitive associations, but also as an indication of the importance of future measurements of implicit assessments of instrumental associations that are the result of instrumental learning from consumers. This has the potential to improve the predictive validity of implicit measurements of brand attitudes and to better understand the structure of implicit consumer attitudes and the mechanisms of their influence on behaviour.

What Does the Implicit Association Test Measure? A Test of the Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Prejudice-Related IATs

Implicit measures assess the influence of past experience on present behavior in the absence of respondents' awareness of that influence. Application of implicit measurement to expectancy and related alcohol cognition research has helped elucidate the links between alcohol-related experiences, the functioning of alcohol-related memory, and alcohol-related behavior. Despite these advances, a coherent picture of the role of implicit measurement has been difficult to achieve because of the diversity of implicit measures used. Two central questions have emerged: Do implicit measures assess a distinct aspect of the alcohol associative memory domain not accessible via explicit measurement; when compared with explicit measurement, do they offer unique prediction of alcohol consumption? To address these questions, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of studies using both implicit and explicit measures of alcohol expectancy and other types of alcohol-related cognition. Results indicate that implicit and explicit measures are weakly related, and although they predict some shared variance in drinking, each also contributes a unique component. Results are discussed in the context of the theoretical distinction made between the 2 types of measures.

Dual process models, such as the Prototype Willingness Model (PWM), propose to account for both intentional and reactive drinking behaviour. Current methods of measuring constructs in the PWM rely on self-report, thus require a level of conscious deliberation. Implicit measures of attitudes may overcome this limitation and contribute to our understanding of how prototypes and willingness influence alcohol consumption in young people. This study aimed to explore whether implicit alcohol attitudes were related to PWM constructs and whether they would add to the prediction of risky drinking. The study involved a cross-sectional design. The sample included 501 participants from the United Kingdom (Mage 18.92; range 11-51; 63% female); 230 school pupils and 271 university students. Participants completed explicit measures of alcohol prototype perceptions, willingness, drunkenness, harms, and intentions. They also completed an implicit measure of alcohol attitudes, using the Implicit Association Test. Implicit alcohol attitudes were only weakly related to the explicit measures. When looking at the whole sample, implicit alcohol attitudes did not add to the prediction of willingness over and above prototype perceptions. However, for university students implicit attitudes added to the prediction of behaviour, over and above intentions and willingness. For school pupils, willingness was a stronger predictor of behaviour than intentions or implicit attitudes. Adding implicit measures to the PWM may contribute to our understanding of the development of alcohol behaviours in young people. Further research could explore how implicit attitudes develop alongside the shift from reactive to planned behaviour. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Young people's drinking tends to occur in social situations and is driven in part by social reactions within these contexts. The Prototype Willingness Model (PWM) attempts to explain such reactive behaviour as the result of social comparison to risk prototypes, which influence willingness to drink, and subsequent behaviour. Evidence also suggests that risky drinking in young people may be influenced by implicit attitudes towards alcohol, which develop with repeated exposure to alcohol over time. One criticism of the PWM is that prototypes and willingness are usually measured using explicit measures which may not adequately capture young people's spontaneous evaluations of prototypes, or their propensity to act without forethought in a social context. What does this study add? This study is novel in exploring the addition of implicit alcohol attitudes to the social reaction pathway in the model in order to understand more about these reactive constructs. Implicit alcohol attitudes added to the prediction of behaviour, over and above intentions and willingness for university students. For school pupils, willingness was a stronger predictor of behaviour than intentions or implicit attitudes. Findings suggest that adding implicit alcohol attitudes into the PWM might be able to explain the shift from reactive to intentional drinking behaviours with age and experience.

Recent research supports that a person’s self-reported explicit attitude is not necessarily consistent with their implicit attitude. However, in sustainability research, implicit cognitive measures are still at their early stages, and consider primarily singular aspects of sustainability. Here, we pose that the degree of congruence of individuals’ implicit and explicit attitudes represents the foundation of any organization’s sustainability culture. Although many organizations assert that sustainable development represents an important dimension of their vision and strategy, in reality, sustainable development often translates simply into explicit self-presentation and reputation. Traditional methods such as surveys lack information on implicit measures and—since they collect data based solely on the explicit knowledge of the respondents, which may be biased by social desirability and impression management—can therefore not determine the degree of congruence between explicit and implicit attitudes. We implemented a browser-based application of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) regarding sustainability as a reaction time-based cognitive measure supported by an interactive and activating process that was completed by 114 executives. Additionally, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted among them to investigate their explicit attitudes. We calculated Pearson correlation coefficients and conducted repeated measures MANOVA and principle component analysis. Our data analysis demonstrated low congruence between explicit and implicit sustainability orientations (Pearson’s r ranging from − 0.10 to 0.31). Potential explanations for our findings relate to the effects of impression management and individuals’ lack of cognitive processing of their own sustainability orientation. In sum, exploring the potential incongruence between explicit and implicit sustainability orientations helps narrow an important knowledge gap and provides a basis for rethinking the impact of internal and external learning processes within and between organizational systems, society, and science.

Implicit anti-gay attitudes are relatively unconscious, automatic evaluations of gay men and lesbians which are measured by assessing the strength of associations in a speeded classification task. In contrast to other implicit prejudices (e.g., racism, sexism) there are unique challenges to overcome when measuring implicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. For example, there is no visible characteristic that can be reliably used to identify sexual orientation, nor are there any names, and only a few nouns (e.g., gay) which are uniquely associated with this social category. As the measurement of implicit anti-gay attitudes relies on the presentation of at least six stimuli to represent the social category, continued discussion on stimuli selection is needed. To date, researchers have relied on the use of stimuli that are conceptually related to the category of GAY (e.g., the rainbow flag, same-sex wedding cake toppers), and therefore these measures may be eliciting related attitudes (e.g., attitudes toward the amorphous category GAY, rather than to GAY PEOPLE). The main aim of this thesis was to present a new approach which addresses this shortcoming. I provided evidence for the person-based approach to implicit antigay attitudes in two initial studies. Study 1 demonstrated that presenting faces of straight male, straight female, gay male, and lesbian target stimuli (who are known for their sexual orientation) with opposite gender distracter stimuli elicits implicit gender attitudes consistent with previous research (Rudman & Goodwin, 2004). However, the same set of gay target stimuli presented with straight distracter stimuli of the same gender (e.g., lesbian targets, and straight female distracters), substantially reduced and reversed the pattern of results, such that gay men are weakly implicitly associated with positive and lesbians are weakly implicitly associated with negative. Moreover, these patterns are affected by participant’s own gender and sexual orientation (Study 2). These findings are interpreted as evidence that the person-based approach is assessing constructs of implicit gender attitudes and implicit sexual orientation-based attitudes that are distinct. Furthermore, Study 3 replicated the results of previous implicit prejudice research (using stimuli that have typically represented gay men and lesbians in implicit measures; e.g., Nosek, 2005) and the findings of Study 1 (i.e., using the person-based approach) providing evidence of the meaningful differences between implicit attitudes towards the category GAY and to GAY PEOPLE. Finally, studies 4 and 5 explored the role of religion and religiosity, known predictors of anti-gay attitudes, on implicit person-based antigay attitudes. Study 4 revealed that only religious fundamentalism was a strong predictor of explicit gay attitudes, and that no significant regression model was found that predicted implicit person-based anti-gay attitudes. In contrast, Study 5 used contextual variation to prime the construct of religion (i.e., distracter stimuli were faces of religious individuals, such as nuns and priests) and revealed that relevant religious stimuli led to a subsequent increase in positive implicit person-based attitudes towards gay people for Atheist, but not Christian participants. Taken together, these findings provide strong evidence for the person-based approach to anti-gay attitudes, suggest that implicit prejudice towards gay people differs from in important ways from implicit attitudes towards the category gay, and demonstrated that implicit person-based anti-gay attitudes have a meaningful, but complex relationship with religiosity. As a result, the proposed measure of implicit person-based anti-gay attitudes makes a novel and important contribution to the current anti-gay literature and provides researchers with a much needed and well validated alternative to the typical approach.

Vegetarian and sustainable food consumption behavior: Exploring the relation to explicit and implicit attitudes toward vegetarian foods and dispositional mindfulness.

In this study we investigated racial vs. athletes from other countries, bias and differences in attitude of South Koreans toward advertisements featuring Korean vs. foreign athletes and White vs. Black athletes by implementing explicit and implicit measures. The results suggest that Koreans have: (a) implicit preferences for Korean athletes over foreign athletes, (b) implicit attitudes that are more favorable toward advertisements featuring Korean athletes than toward those featuring foreign athlete-spokespersons, (c) implicit preferences for White athletes over Black athletes, and (d) implicit attitudes that are more favorable toward advertisements featuring White athlete-spokespersons than toward those featuring Black athlete-spokespersons. The explicit measures revealed several contradictory results; therefore we have discussed implications for the discrepancy between implicit and explicit measurement methods and the usefulness of implicit measures in the context of racial bias research.

Academics and managers need to know that key mental processes occur below the conscious awareness threshold. While unconscious processes largely influence consumer decision-making processes, self-report measures do not reveal these processes adequately. Consequently, marketers need to utilise psychologists’ indirect measures that infer unconscious mental content from reaction-time tasks. Three well-known tools are explicated in the present article: the Emotional Stroop Task, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), and the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT). Each test taps into a different facet of implicit cognition. This research describes these test instruments’ experimental setups and alternative procedures to guide academics and practitioners when they apply implicit measures. The Ask Your Brain (AYB) survey software is presented as an online research platform for executing all three test types and provides a cost-efficient alternative to lab experiments. In this paper’s conceptual part, we outline the three test instruments’ research paradigms and describe their past applications in the marketing domain. We describe each implicit measurement instrument’s conceptual background, summarize its standard test procedures, and briefly discuss relevant methodological criticisms. We describe how the obtained measurement data should be prepared, condensed, and analysed. Subsequently, we present an empirical case to illustrate the concrete application of the different measurement instruments, utilising empirical data gained from a consumer protection study of 104 South African students. These young adults were confronted with alcohol stimuli in the Emotional Stroop Task, IAT, and AAT. They subsequently performed a discrete choice task related to alcoholic drinks and soft drinks. Based on their drink choices, we explore the extent to which the implicit measures relate to their choice behaviour. The Emotional Stroop Task is based on the premise that emotional stimuli attract more visual attention than neutral stimuli. This distraction causes a delay in response when participants are asked to name a displayed word's colour as fast as possible. Although our study could not directly support this premise, alcohol-inclined participants generally reacted more slowly to alcohol and neutral stimuli. The IAT confronts participants with combinations of a bipolar target category and a bipolar attribute category. Category combinations corresponding to the respondent's intuition (compatible) facilitate task performance and result in shorter reaction times. In our study, those individuals who chose significantly more drinks containing alcohol reacted faster to combinations of “alcohol” and “active” (rather than “alcohol” and “miserable”). This finding shows that the IAT can indeed predict choice behaviour. Finally, the AAT postulates that individuals move faster to a desired object and away from an undesired object. Both the reaction times and the error rates indicated this pattern. Individuals were slower and produced more errors during incongruent tasks (push positive items; pull negative items) than congruent tasks (pull liked items, push disliked items). This finding show that implicit measures can identify consumers´ approach and avoidance tendencies. This paper provides methodological insights into three prominent implicit cognition measures, as well as practical suggestions for practitioners and academics. We exemplify each method’s usage for research questions in marketing and consumer research. We particularly suggest using the Emotional Stroop Task for studies on attention-based processes, for example, advertisement exposure. The IAT is recommended for assessing richer cognitive processes, such as product or brand images, and the AAT when studying visceral and biological influences on impulsive consumption. Overall, we encourage marketing researchers to add implicit measures to their toolbox and to explore their contributions further for a better understanding of consumer decision making.

Alternatives to donor blood have been developed in part to meet increasing demand. However, new biotechnologies are often associated with increased perceptions of risk and low acceptance. This paper reviews developments of alternatives and presents data, from a field-based experiment in the UK and Holland, on the risks and acceptance of donor blood and alternatives (chemical, genetically modified and bovine). UK groups perceived all substitutes as riskier than the Dutch. There is a negative association between perceived risk and acceptability. Solutions to increasing acceptance are discussed in terms of implicit attitudes, product naming and emotional responses.