The present study investigated the Anger IAT as a valid measure of anger. In order to answer this question the relationship between the Anger IAT and traditional measures of anger, anxiety, and self esteem were examined for convergent and divergent validity. It was hypothesized that the Anger IAT measure would be moderately to highly correlated with the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory- 2 (STAXI-2), correlated less with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and correlated least with the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES). Additionally, to demonstrate that the Anger IAT measure reduces a person??s ability to fake good, social desirability is hypothesized to have a moderating effect between the Anger IAT and the STAXI-2. A total of 60 subjects participated in this investigation, 42 of which were female and 18 were males. Furthermore, there were 20 Caucasian, 34 Hispanic, and 6 African American participants. It was found that the Anger IAT was correlated with several scales of the STAXI-2. The Anger IAT correlated less with the STAI and least with the RSES. Furthermore, it was found that the Anger IAT measure reduced the participant??s ability to fake good.

Aktuell forskning inom social kognition tyder på att såväl fördomar som diskriminering kan befinna sig på implicit, det vill säga omedveten och automatisk nivå (Greenwald & Banaji,1995). Om lärare har implicita fördomar gentemot invandrarelever finns det därför risk för att de omedvetet diskriminerar dessa. Med anledning av detta undersöktes med hjälp av Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998) 52 lärarstudenters implicita attityder gentemot invandrarelever. Dessutom undersöktes lärarstudenters explicita attityder gentemot samma grupp. Resultaten visade att en stor majoritet (79 %) av lärarstudenterna hade negativa attityder gentemot invandrarelever på implicit nivå, medan endast en dryg tredjedel uttryckte detta explicit. Det fanns dessutom ingen statistisk signifikant korrelation mellan de explicita och implicita måtten. Även om denna diskrepans kan bero på att deltagarna ville dölja sina negativa attityder gentemot invandrarelever, finns det anledning att tro att många lärarstudenter har implicita attityder som de inte är fullt medvetna om och som kan ligga till grund för omedveten diskriminering av invandrarelever.

<p>Aktuell forskning inom social kognition tyder på att såväl fördomar som diskriminering kan befinna sig på implicit, det vill säga omedveten och automatisk nivå (Greenwald & Banaji,1995). Om lärare har implicita fördomar gentemot invandrarelever finns det därför risk för att de omedvetet diskriminerar dessa. Med anledning av detta undersöktes med hjälp av Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998) 52 lärarstudenters implicita attityder gentemot invandrarelever. Dessutom undersöktes lärarstudenters explicita attityder gentemot samma grupp.</p><p>Resultaten visade att en stor majoritet (79 %) av lärarstudenterna hade negativa attityder gentemot invandrarelever på implicit nivå, medan endast en dryg tredjedel uttryckte detta explicit. Det fanns dessutom ingen statistisk signifikant korrelation mellan de explicita och implicita måtten. Även om denna diskrepans kan bero på att deltagarna ville dölja sina negativa attityder gentemot invandrarelever, finns det anledning att tro att många lärarstudenter har implicita attityder som de inte är fullt medvetna om och som kan ligga till grund för omedveten diskriminering av invandrarelever.</p>

Research on prejudice has long been skewed by participants’ ability to monitor their reactions on overt measures of such attitudes. Accordingly, researchers created an implicit measure to study prejudice (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was thus developed. Though the IAT has long been purported as the only ‘true’ measure of participants’ feelings and cognitions, recent research has suggested the measure is not as infallible as once purported (e.g., Smith & Zarate, 1990). The purpose of this study was to integrate existing research on exemplars and how they affect scores on the IAT. Results showed that priming participants with racial exemplars that vary in terms of stereotypicality and valence had little effect on Race-IAT scores. Further, contrary to previous research, significant differences between African American and European American participants on the Race-IAT did emerge.

To date, there is a dearth of research examining the relationship between cognitive and affective aspects of prejudice and their ability to predict overt and covert homonegative behaviours. Research in this area is important as many gay men and lesbian women are the target of homonegative acts, and it is these behaviours that are important to understand. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to examine: 1) if modern homonegativity related to explicit affective measures; 2) if modern homonegativity related to implicit affective measures; 3) whether modern homonegativity related to implicit cognitive measures; 4) which measure was the best predictor of covert behaviour; and 5) which measure was the best predictor of overt behaviour. The four measures used as potential predictors were: 1) the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS), an explicit, cognitive measure; 2) the Implicit Association Test (IAT), an implicit, cognitive measure; 3) a feeling thermometer, an explicit, affective measure; and 4) facial electromyographic reactions, an implicit affective measure. This study consisted of three phases: in Phase I, 171 male undergraduates completed an online survey consisting of explicit measures of homonegativity. Fifty-five participants were recalled to participate in Phases II and III, which consisted of a behavioural component and the facial EMG and IAT components. Results indicated that modern homonegativity was associated with implicit cognitive measures as well as explicit measures of affect. However, modern homonegativity was not associated with implicit measures of affect. Additionally, positive affect in the form of cheek activity and negative affect toward images of couples kissing in the form of brow activity, measured through facial EMG, were associated with covert behaviour, with cheek activity being the better predictor. Brow activity toward images of gay couples kissing, indicative of negative affect, was the only measure associated with overt behaviour. Limitations and potential future directions for conducting research using implicit measures of homonegativity are discussed.

To date, there is a dearth of research examining the relationship between cognitive and affective aspects of prejudice and their ability to predict overt and covert homonegative behaviours. Research in this area is important as many gay men and lesbian women are the target of homonegative acts, and it is these behaviours that are important to understand. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to examine: 1) if modern homonegativity related to explicit affective measures; 2) if modern homonegativity related to implicit affective measures; 3) whether modern homonegativity related to implicit cognitive measures; 4) which measure was the best predictor of covert behaviour; and 5) which measure was the best predictor of overt behaviour. The four measures used as potential predictors were: 1) the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS), an explicit, cognitive measure; 2) the Implicit Association Test (IAT), an implicit, cognitive measure; 3) a feeling thermometer, an explicit, affective measure; and 4) facial electromyographic reactions, an implicit affective measure. This study consisted of three phases: in Phase I, 171 male undergraduates completed an online survey consisting of explicit measures of homonegativity. Fifty-five participants were recalled to participate in Phases II and III, which consisted of a behavioural component and the facial EMG and IAT components. Results indicated that modern homonegativity was associated with implicit cognitive measures as well as explicit measures of affect. However, modern homonegativity was not associated with implicit measures of affect. Additionally, positive affect in the form of cheek activity and negative affect toward images of couples kissing in the form of brow activity, measured through facial EMG, were associated with covert behaviour, with cheek activity being the better predictor. Brow activity toward images of gay couples kissing, indicative of negative affect, was the only measure associated with overt behaviour. Limitations and potential future directions for conducting research using implicit measures of homonegativity are discussed.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a computer-based psychological test that measures implicit attitudes, stereotypes and beliefs. In an effort to better understand the applicability and limitations of the IAT researchers have investigated the effects of manipulating a variety of procedural variables that comprise the IAT, not least the IAT categories and the exemplars that are instances of those categories. This study investigated the effects of manipulating the IAT's target categories that define the attitudinal domain that the IAT measures. Experiments were devised to determine the IAT's sensitivity to minor and major semantic manipulations to its target categories while keeping exemplars and attribute categories constant. It was found that the IAT was sensitive to major semantic differences in its target categories, but was apparently insensitive to minor semantic category differences, implying that it is unable to discriminate between subtle distinctions in attitude. It was hypothesised that this latter finding could have been partly due to a temporary cognitive re-definition of the categories in accordance with the salient characteristics of the exemplars. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

Schema violation has been shown to have an impact on cognition. Previous research using reading tasks has shown that the impact is not the same across male and female characters, and research has shown that men and women hold different view of schemas. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) has been used as a method to investigate schema violation, but no study has effectively investigated gender differences. Therefore, this study specifically investigates the factors of participant and character gender on schema violation during the IAT. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the cognitive impact of schema violation while participants completed gender and sexuality IATs. Significant effects were found for participant gender and character gender in several ERP components (N100, P200, N400, and LPP), but only for the gender-career IAT. This suggests that on a basic cognitive level ERP activity is influenced by gender.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most popular indirect measure of attitudes in social psychology. It has been suggested that salience asymmetries are a non-associative contaminant of the IAT that threatens the accurate assessment of attitudes. Salience asymmetries in the IAT are claimed to correspond with visual search asymmetries, and differences in target familiarity. In this thesis, I propose that processing fluency is the common mechanism underlying both visual search asymmetries and familiarity. Several experiments were conducted to determine whether visual search asymmetries, familiarity, or processing fluency most reliably corresponds with salience asymmetry effects in the IAT. The first series of experiments revealed that processing fluency is a better predictor of salience asymmetry effects in the IAT than is visual search asymmetry (Chapter 2). In Chapter 3, a novel method was developed to distinguish between the effects of valence and salience in the IAT. Using this method, I demonstrated that the effects of salience in the IAT are consistent with a fluency account of salience asymmetries. Familiarity was also shown to produce salience asymmetry effects in the IAT (Chapter 4), which is also consistent with the fluency account. When fluency and familiarity were set against each other in Chapter 5, it was processing fluency, rather than familiarity, that predicted salience asymmetry effects in the IAT. Although processing fluency is a good predictor of salience asymmetries, the results of Chapter 6 reveal that the fluency account cannot explain all examples of salience asymmetries in the IAT. The data presented here are consistent with the view that the more fluently processed target category is compatible with the pleasant attributes on the grounds of salience asymmetries. The current experiments suggest that when there are valence differences between the target categories, salience asymmetries can potentially distort IAT effects. When the positive target category is more salient, salience asymmetries appear to increase IAT effects. In contrast, when the negative target category is more salient, salience asymmetries appear to decrease IAT effects. However, further evidence is required to determine how the effects of salience and valence combine in the IAT.

Attractiveness can provide an individual with advantages that less attractive people may not be granted. These advantages can be seen in everyday life through the perception that attractive individuals are more intelligent, friendly, and employees. Many researchers have found that attractiveness can have an influence on who gets the job and who does not. Past research on the influence of attractiveness on hiring practices has been conducted from an explicit attitude perspective. Explicit attitudes are evaluations that are thought out and conform to social norms, while implicit attitudes are unconscious evaluations before the influence of social norm. Implicit and explicit attitudes are considered two different constructs and accessed for different reasons. It was hypothesized that hiring agents would consider attractive applicants better suited when using an implicit attitude. Additionally there would be differences between male and female hiring agents. Results indicate that hiring agents associated attractive applicants with good job attributes when using an implicit attitude. However, there was no difference between male and female hiring agents, as both associated attractive applicants with good job attributes equally. The results also demonstrated that not all implicit and explicit attitudes diverge as previous research has indicated. The study also found a number of applicant attributes that contribute to the influence of whether to interview and hire attractive and unattractive applicants.