Optimizing Implicit Attitude Measurement

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。社会科学家最想测量的一些特征是那些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，因为受访者不愿意在问卷上报告这些话题。内隐测试提供了一种绕过这一障碍的方法，通过测量态度而不依赖于自我报告。相反，内隐测试通过态度对任务表现的影响来间接评估态度。因此，内隐态度测试已成为研究现代社会中种族态度的重要工具，在现代社会中，公然表达偏见是禁忌。该项目的目标是开发一种最可靠和有效的种族态度内隐测试。情感错误归因程序（AMP）是一种隐性的测量方法，其原理是人们很难区分他们对快速连续出现的两个项目的感觉。利用这一原则，该测试测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，比其他可用的测试有几个优点。本项目旨在利用项目反应理论，一种最先进的心理测量方法，在过去的进展基础上，优化测试的质量。该研究将使用具有全国代表性的样本来校准具有已知心理测量特性的项目池。然后，这些项目可以用来衡量标准化尺度上的种族态度。该项目将产生一个具有最佳测量特性的简短测试，以用户友好软件的形式免费提供给研究人员。这样的测试将有助于建立研究基础设施，并加强对种族态度很重要的许多领域的科学理解，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.