Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do Attitudes Form and Change?
Treat each task response as evidence that needs an interpretation, and compare competing interpretations.
Why you’re reading it. Make measurement a question to investigate before explaining formation or change.
A question to consider. If a library survey and a speeded task disagree, what would you need to know before deciding that one reveals the person's true attitude?
Why this reading
What does a faster response on a sorting task establish about a person? This review separates measured performance from the mental processes proposed to explain it.
Before you read
An indirect measure infers evaluation from a task rather than asking for it directly. The Implicit Association Test compares sorting speed and accuracy. Reliability concerns consistency; validity concerns the interpretation and use of a score.
Read for
- Distinguish the observed response from claims about awareness, associations, or beliefs.
- Compare stable characteristics, temporary states, and situational influences as explanations.
- Separate predicting another behavior from explaining why it occurs.
Consider afterwards
- A person's score changes between sessions. What evidence would distinguish attitude change, a context effect, and measurement error?
Editorial context
The authors advocate a way of organizing contested evidence, not a settled account of everything an indirect task measures. The review does not establish a diagnostic threshold for individuals. Forscher and colleagues' synthesis also cautions against assuming that changing implicit-task performance necessarily changes behavior.