Differential Stability The Effects of Acute and Chronic Construct Accessibility on the Temporal Stability of the Implicit Association Test

Abstract

The current research explored the stability of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) depending on contextual constraints and chronic accessibility. Two studies incorporated background pictures into the IAT. In Study 1, the 2-week stability of an IAT assessing anxiety was higher when IAT stimuli were embedded in an anxiety-relevant background (e.g., a snake). In Study 2, this context effect could be replicated in the domain of racial attitudes. Moreover, the context effect in Study 2 was especially pronounced for participants with high chronic access to the relevant concept. The results support the assumption that implicit measures like the IAT are sensitive to contextual constraints and that these constraints can be utilized to enhance the stability of the IAT.