Challenging the Mechanism for the Implicit Association Test [Registered Report Stage 1 Protocol]

ABSTRACT Implicit biases are stereotypes and attitudes that impact our decisions and actions, playing an important role in discrimination and societal inequities. The most widely used tool for measuring implicit bias is the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which assesses response time in sorting stimuli into labeled categories. Most interpretations of the IAT assume that response time is driven by the activation of conflicting associative memories, or decision ease. In the current project we wish to challenge this assumption by testing another process that may impact IAT results, response caution, which is people’s tendency to sacrifice speed for accuracy. We use Racing Diffusion Models to differentiate the effects of decision ease and response caution on IAT results across 39 topics. Exploratory analyses suggest that response caution is a stronger predictor of both IAT scores and explicit preferences relative to decision ease. Our findings have important implications for IAT assessment and interventions. ITEMS Stage 1 Registered Report Protocol, Stage 1 Registered Report Supplementary Information