The Implicit Association Test at Age 7: A Methodological and Conceptual Review

A mong earthly organisms, humans have a unique propensity to introspect or look inward into the contents of their own minds, and to share those observations with others. With the ability to introspect comes the palpable feeling of " knowing, " of being objective or certain, of being mentally in control of one's thoughts, aware of the causes of one's thoughts, feelings, and actions, and of making decisions deliberately and rationally. Among the noteworthy discoveries of 20th century psychology was a challenge posed to this assumption of rationality. From the groundbreaking theorizing of Herbert Simon (1955) and the mind-boggling problems posed by Kahneman, Slovik, and Tversky (1982) to striking demonstrations of illusions of control (Wegner, 2002), the paucity of introspection (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977), and the automaticity of everyday thought (Bargh, 1997), psychologists have shown the frailties of the minds of their species. As psychologists have come to grips with the limits of the mind, there has been an increased interest in measuring aspects of thinking and feeling that may not be easily accessed or available to consciousness. Innovations in measurement have been undertaken with the purpose of bringing under scrutiny new forms of cogni-tion and emotion that were previously undiscovered and especially by asking if traditional concepts such as attitude and preference, belief and stereotype, self-concept and self-esteem can be rethought based on what the new measures reveal. These newer measures do not require introspection on the part of the subject. For many constructs this is considered a valuable, if not essential, feature of measurement; for others, avoiding introspection is greeted with suspicion and skepticism. For example, one approach to measuring math ability would be to ask " how good are you at math? " whereas an alternative approach is to infer math ability via a performance on a math skills test. The former requires introspection to assess the relevant construct, the latter does not. And yet, the latter is accepted