When the method makes a difference: Antagonistic effects on “automatic evaluations” as a function of task characteristics of the measure

By Roland Deutsch, Bertram Gawronski. 2009

125 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Researchers often employ implicit measures as dependent variables to investigate processes of attitude formation and change. In such studies, experimentally induced differences are typically interpreted as reflecting change in automatic evaluations. We argue that experimentally induced effects on implicit measures may not always reflect genuine changes in evaluative responses, but can be driven by the mechanisms underlying the measurement procedure. In line with this assumption, the present research shows that these mechanisms can produce opposite effects of the same experimental manipulation for otherwise equivalent implicit measures. These results indicate that merely observing experimental effects on implicit measures does not allow direct inferences regarding changes in automatic evaluations. Instead, psychological interpretations of such effects hinge upon the mechanics of how a given measurement procedure responds to variations in the context. Implications for research using implicit measures are discussed.

Subfields: Gender Studies, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8d9e26d684e3620d082f08ebf39431bb6ce3c12a

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Citations in the corpus

Ten Frequently Asked Questions About Implicit Measures and Their Frequently Supposed, But Not Entirely Correct Answers (2009, background): “Even though research on this question is still scarce, there is evidence that otherwise identical implicit measures that are based on different mechanisms can show opposite effects of the same experimental manipulation (e.g., Deutsch & Gawronski, 2009; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2005).”
Holding on to our functional roots when exploring new intellectual islands: A voyage through implicit cognition research (2012, background): “Consequently, task-specific properties that characterize one indirect procedure but are absent from another may explain why different tasks sometimes show opposite or alternative outcomes for theoretically comparable manipulations (Deutsch & Gawronski, 2009).”
A functional-cognitive framework for attitude research (2013, background): “…of evaluative responses represent the basis for studies on the impact of attitudes on behaviour, which are discussed in more detail in the following section. attitudes, but because they affect the mechanisms through which implicit attitudes influence behaviour (e.g., Deutsch & Gawronski, 2009).”
I like you, I like you not: Understanding the formation of context-dependent automatic attitudes (2009, background): “In fact, recent research suggests that measures of automatic evaluation differ in important ways, which can lead to different outcomes of the same experimental manipulation for different measures (eg, Deutsch & Gawronski, 2008 ; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2005 ; Gawronski, Cunningham, LeBel, & Deuts”