Theoretical Interpretation
The IAT provides a “window” into a level of mental operation that operates in unthinking (unconscious, automatic, implicit, impulsive, intuitive, etc.) fashion because associations operating without active thought (automatically) can help performance in one of the IAT’s two “combined” tasks, while interfering with the other. Respondents to the IAT experience a higher (conscious, controlled, explicit, reflective, analytic, rational, etc.) level of mental operation, when they try to overcome the effects of the automatic associations. The IAT succeeds as a measure because the higher level fails to completely overcome the lower level.
Read more about this topic: Implicit Association Test
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“There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)