Optimizing Implicit Attitude Measurement

该奖项由2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公法111-5)资助。社会科学家最想衡量的一些特征是研究志愿者最不可能报告的特征。历史上，种族偏见等社会敏感话题给社会科学研究人员带来了挑战，因为受访者不愿在问卷中报告这些问题。隐性测试提供了一种绕过这一障碍的方法，它通过测量态度而不依赖自我报告。相反，内隐测试通过态度对任务绩效的影响来间接评估态度。因此，隐性态度测试已成为研究现代社会种族态度的重要工具，在现代社会，公然表达偏见是禁忌。这个项目的目标是开发一种关于种族态度的最佳可靠和有效的内隐测试。情感错误归因程序(AMP)是一种内隐测量，其原理是人们很难区分他们对快速连续呈现的两个项目的感觉。使用这一原则，测试衡量了对不同种族群体的有利或不利态度，而不要求受访者表达他们对这些群体的态度。初步研究表明，AMP是一种有效的测试，与其他可用的测试相比具有几个优势。这个项目旨在通过使用项目反应理论，一种最先进的心理测量学方法，来优化测试的质量，从而在过去的基础上再接再厉。这项研究将使用具有全国代表性的样本来校准一组具有已知心理测量学特性的项目。然后，这些项目可以用来在标准化的量表上衡量种族态度。该项目将制作一个具有最佳测量性能的简短测试，研究人员可以以用户友好的软件形式免费获得该测试。这样的测试将有助于研究基础设施，并在许多种族态度重要的领域加强科学理解，包括心理学、政治学、经济学、社会学和法学。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Some of the traits social scientists most want to measure are the ones that research volunteers are least likely to report. Socially sensitive topics such as racial prejudice have historically presented challenges for social science researchers because respondents are reluctant to report about them on questionnaires. Implicit tests offer a way around that obstacle by measuring attitudes without relying on self-reports. Instead, implicit tests assess attitudes indirectly via their impact on task performance. Implicit attitude tests have thus become a critical tool for studying race attitudes in modern societies, where blatant expressions of prejudice are taboo. The goal of this project is to develop an optimally reliable and valid implicit test of racial attitudes. The Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) is an implicit measure that works on the principle that people have difficulty distinguishing their feelings toward two items presented in rapid succession. Using this principle, the test measures favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward various racial groups without asking respondents to express their attitudes toward those groups. Initial research has shown the AMP to be a valid test with several advantages over other available tests. This project aims to build on past progress by using item response theory, a state-of-the-art psychometric approach, to optimize the quality of the test. The study will use a nationally representative sample to calibrate a pool of items with known psychometric properties. The items can then be used to measure racial attitudes on a standardized scale. The project will produce a short test with optimal measurement properties that is freely available to researchers in the form of user-friendly software. Such a test will contribute to research infrastructure and enhance scientific understanding across many fields where racial attitudes are important, including psychology, political science, economics, sociology, and law.