Explicit and Implicit attitudes
Explicit attitudes are an expression of a response which exists and operates at a conscious level, these attitudes are measured with multi-item self-report scales (Himmelfrab, 1993). According to Devos (2008) an implicit attitude is an assessment of groups or individuals that occurs without a conscious awareness. These attitudes can be both positive or negative and can be caused and influenced by a number of experiences. Wilson (2000) states that these attitudes have three different attributes: 1) the individual is unaware of one’s own attitude or bias, 2) these hidden biases are triggered unconsciously, 3) they affect the individuals behaviour. It’s clear that implicit attitudes these implicit attitudes subsist beyond awareness, however it is evident that these biases can have an effect on the behaviour of an individual. Ggawronksi et al (2006) have supported this by finding that even those who have democratic views in society may still solicit racial bias which are found by measures designed to assess implicit attitudes (Greenwald & Krieger, 2006) and these attitudes can even lead to discrimination against ‘out’ groups (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004).
Measures of Implicit Attitudes.
Implicit attitudes are prominently measured using response latency measures (Wittenbrink, B., & Schwarz, N. 2007). The measures used have been described as uncontrolled processes, which are uncontrolled, inadvertent, purely unconscious and react extremely fast (De Houwer, J. & Moors, A. 2007). Response latency is the measure used to conduct an IAT and is the reaction time and response. The response latency measures are based on two specifications, one is that being exposed to one stimulus can affect the response to related stimuli and the second is that the reaction time for a particular stimulus may lag if a conflicting idea is present (Mayerl, Jochen, 2013). Therefore the time that it takes for an individual to respond and link a stimulus with a category can reveal deeper lying meanings about how that person perceives and evaluates certain categories (Greenwald & Krieger, 2006). This is the main premise of how the Implicit Association Test (IAT) functions.
The Implicit Association Test (IAT)
In the history of psychology attitudes and behaviours have been limited to questionnaires and tools like differential scales (Cunningham. et al 2001). However measuring attitudes using these tools have come under scrutiny, as the ability to report one’s own attitudes and beliefs accurately are unreliable (Greenwald & Krieger, 2006). The evaluative priming technique introduced by Fazio et al was a new variation of the established semantic priming technique which was pioneered by Neely (Cunningam et al. 2001). However since then Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz (1998) created the IAT which was used to observe underlying attitudes by comparitively measuring against the strength of the association between an object and concept of good against the strength of association between an object and concept of bad. The IAT measures the relative strength of association betweem a category and an attribute. The purpose of the test is for the participants to rapidly identify which stimuli represent a category (these can be in the form of words or even pictures) and associate them with words for each category . These tend to be organised into four particular categories, but the participant can only make two responses (pleasant and unpleasant) (Olson & Fazio. 2003). It is assumed that when participants are pairing categories and attributes that are both presumed as pleasant they will be easier to pair, however when a participant is asked to pair one pleasant category with an unpleasant attribute then the participant is likely to take longer to associate the two, as there is a conflict between the category and attribute. Due to this the stimuli that are perceived as closely related will be easier to categorise and will be done so more accurately and quickly (Lane et al. 2007).
The IAT is structured in a seven block format (Greenwald et al. 1998) and within each of the blocks the participants are asked to categorise examples of two opposing concepts (good and bad) using response keys. As the test continues the second block the continues in a similar fashion but the stimulus changes from words to pictures or symbols, for example flowers and insects). Block three is a combination of both of the previous tasks and participants are asked to categorise both a good concept along with the stimulus (flowers) to the right and the ‘bad’ concept with the opposing stimulus (insects) to the left (the response direction can be scripted on either side depending on the test). USELESS**?
The IAT has been developed to analyse and study the implicit evaluations and individual has relative to various groups (Cunningham, Nezlek, and Banaji 2004; Devos and Banaji 2003; Nosek, Banaji,
and Greenwald 2002). Generally and IAT measures the level and strength of the association between concepts using a stimulus and calculating the time it takes for an individual to organise pleasant and unpleasant words with a symbol or a picture that represents two specific groups
The foundation of the IAT is based upon the notion that two categories are associated within the memory of individuals (in this instance that assumption is that ‘Bearded men are bad’), and that these categories when places together will be easily represented by the response key and reaction time than two categories that aren’t associated to an individual e.g non beard and bad (Olson & Fazio. 2003). The results of the IAT test are based on the average time from the response latency in each block.
 
Wittenbrink, B., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (2007). Implicit measures of attitudes. Guilford Press.