The Implicit Association Test (IAT) provides a measure of strengths of associations among concepts, such as the association of positive or negative valence with stigmatized social categories (racial or ethnic groups, elderly, etc.) The measure of association strength test is computed from latencies of responses to a series of instances of the concepts. Virtues of the measure are that the respondent (a) need not be aware of the associations, (b) cannot readily control the manifestations of association strengths that the test elicits, and (c) is often surprised and either enlightened or disturbed (or both) by these manifestations. Four data sets each of about 10,000 respondents X 200 responses were used to explore alternative methods of combining the IAT's latency and error data into association strength measures, with the objective of maximizing construct validity of the measure.
Strongly recommended (and easy to obtain) background:
1. Visit http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/
2. Click 'select a test' at the bottom of the page
3. Try any test, but I suggest you try the 'age bias' test first
4. If you have time for another, try one of the racial bias tests involving African Americans ('weapons', 'black/white children', or 'black/white adults')
Doing two tests should take max. 15 minutes. The site has additional information about the IAT, e.g., at http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/tutorials/05.html
