The Project Implicit International Dataset: Measuring Implicit and Explicit Social Group Attitudes and Stereotypes Across 34 Countries (2009–2019)

For decades, researchers across the social sciences have sought to document and explain the worldwide variation in social group attitudes (evaluative representations, e.g., young-good/old-bad) and stereotypes (attribute representations, e.g., male–science/female–arts). Indeed, uncovering such country-level variation can provide key insights into questions ranging from how attitudes and stereotypes are clustered across places to why some places have stronger attitudes and stereotypes than others (including ecological and social correlates). Here, we introduce the Project Implicit:International (PI:International) dataset that uniquely propels this research forward by offering the first cross-country dataset of both implicit (indirectly-measured) and explicit (directly-measured) attitudes and stereotypes across multiple topics and years. Specifically, PI:International comprises 2.3 million tests for 7 topics (race, sexual orientation, age, body weight, nationality, and skin-tone attitudes, as well as men/women–science/arts stereotypes) using both indirect (Implicit Association Test; IAT) and direct (self-report) measures collected continuously from 2009 to 2019 from 36 country-specific websites in each country’s native language(s). We show that the IAT data from PI:International has adequate internal consistency (split-half reliability), convergent validity (implicit–explicit correlations), and known groups validity. Given such reliability and validity, we summarize basic descriptive results on the overall strength and variability of implicit and explicit attitudes and stereotypes around the world. The PI:International dataset, including both cleaned data and trial-level data from the IAT, is provided openly to facilitate wide access and novel discoveries on the global nature of implicit and explicit attitudes and stereotypes.

Race and Social Class as Intersecting Social Categories

Race and social class are inherently confounded; however, much of the literature focuses on only one of these categories at a time during attitude assessment. Across three studies, we examined the influence of race and social class on implicit and explicit attitudes. Results indicated that participants had more positive attitudes toward high social class White and high social class Black people than low social class White and low social class Black people. Attitudes for high social class White versus high social class Black people and low social class White versus low social class Black people were more nuanced and attitude/measure dependent. Thus, this research highlights the intricacy of attitudes when considering intersectional categories.

Split Feelings: Understanding Implicit and Explicit Political Persuasion

Research in psychology has established that people have visceral positive and negative reactions to all kinds of stimuli—so-called implicit attitudes. Implicit attitudes are empirically distinct from explicit attitudes, and they appear to have separate consequences for political behavior. However, little is known about whether they change in response to different factors than explicit attitudes. Identifying distinct antecedents for implicit and explicit attitudes would have far-reaching implications for the study of political persuasion. We hypothesized that implicit attitudes would change primarily in response to political advertisements’ emotional valence, but this turned out to be wrong. In contrast, our next hypothesis that implicit (but not explicit) attitudes would improve in response to increased familiarity with an attitude object was supported across several tests. Aside from this finding, our studies illustrate how routine preregistration helps researchers convey what they learned from each test—including when predictions are not borne out.

Exploring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes of Employees’ Authentic Organizational Loyalty

The purpose of this study was to develop the OL-IAT (Organizational Loyalty – Implicit Association Test), an IAT tool that measures implicit attitudes toward organizational loyalty, and to verify its predictive validity. In total, 15 respondents were randomly selected from among the employees of P Company. The respondents were then asked open questions about the image they held of the target company. Based on their responses, a list of words was compiled for use on the OL-IAT. Evaluation categories, either like-dislike or positive-negative, were developed for this test based on the approach-avoidance words proposed by Ostafin and Palfai (2006). The OL-IAT was then administered to 127 employees of Company P, and self-reporting measures were also devised to measure explicit attitudes. A survey of whether the implicit attitude toward organizational loyalty was consistent with the explicit attitude showed that there was no significant correlation, and the attitude inconsistency was evident in the responses. When differences in rank were accounted for, organizational loyalty attitudes were consistent at the manager level, and organizational participation attitudes were consistent at the manager and general staff levels. This study will aid in the development of effective measures of organizational loyalty and accelerate interventions to increase it, which in turn will positively impact long-term organizational growth.

Measuring the Affective and Cognitive Bases of Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Towards Domestic and Foreign Food Brands

The problem of accounting automatic affective and cognitive processes as bases for implicit attitudes towards brands, as well as methods for measuring them, is poorly developed. An analysis of previous research shows that the study of attitudes towards brands in terms of their affective and cognitive components is mainly carried out using self-assessment procedures. The aim of this research is to measure the affective and cognitive bases of implicit and explicit attitudes towards brands of domestic and foreign foods. Participants N = 131, aged 17-57 (Mdn = 31). Measures: specifically designed methodically balanced procedures for measuring implicit and explicit attitudes towards food brands: affective and cognitive implicit associative tests (IAT), Self-Concept IAT; emotional and cognitive explicit procedures and demographic questionnaires. The consistency of the results of implicit and explicit measurements is shown. The results of the measurements of implicit attitudes using three IAT procedures are related too. Using factor analysis, the independence of the constructs of explicit and implicit attitudes towards brands was confirmed, which is interpreted in terms of the theory of double attitudes. The greatest contribution to the implicit attitude, measured by the Self-concept IAT, is made by the cognitive component of attitude, which represents the implicit brand associations of domestic or foreign foods with attributes that characterize the price and quality of the foods. All implicit assessments obtained separately using the affective and cognitive procedures of the IAT, as well as the Self-concept IAT, testified in favour of the preference for foods of domestic brands. However, explicit assessments of the frequency of consumption of the brands under consideration did not reveal preferences for any of them. This discrepancy is seen not only as evidence of a possible ambivalent interaction between affective and cognitive associations, but also as an indication of the importance of future measurements of implicit assessments of instrumental associations that are the result of instrumental learning from consumers. This has the potential to improve the predictive validity of implicit measurements of brand attitudes and to better understand the structure of implicit consumer attitudes and the mechanisms of their influence on behaviour.

Preservice Teachers’ Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Towards Teaching and Learning

When it comes to teacher attitudes towards teaching and learning, research relies heavily on explicit measures (e.g., questionnaires). These attitudes are generally conceptualized as constructivist and transmissive views on teaching and learning with constructivism often considered to be more desirable. In explicit measures, this can have drawbacks like socially desirable responding. It is for this reason that, in this study, we investigated implicit attitudes as well as explicit attitudes towards constructivism and transmission. N = 100 preservice teachers worked on a questionnaire and two Single-Target Implicit Association Tests (ST-IAT constructivism and ST-IAT transmission) before (T1) and after (T2) a single master’s semester. One group (n = 50) did student teaching while a second group (n = 50) took master’s courses. We evaluated preservice teachers’ views on teaching at the end of their masters’ studies. Participants agreed with transmission and constructivism (T1) on both an explicit and implicit level. Implicit measures seem to exceed explicit measures in differentially assessing constructivist and transmissive views on teaching and learning. After student teaching (T2), there was no overall effect of attitude development but changes in rank indicate that participants’ implicit attitudes towards constructivism and transmission developed differently for each individual.