When Nonsense Sounds Happy or Helpless: The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT)

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology 2009-09, Vol.97 (3), p.500-516
• Main Authors: Quirin, Markus, Kazén, Miguel, Kuhl, Julius
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Affect; Assessment; Biological and medical sciences; Construct Validity; Discriminant analysis; Emotional States; Emotions; Factor analysis; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Happiness; Helplessness, Learned; Human; Humans; Judgment; Male; Mood; Personality Assessment - statistics & numerical data; Personality Measures; Psychological tests; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychometrics - statistics & numerical data; Semantics; Sensitivity and Specificity; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social psychology; Sociological research; Test Reliability; Test Validity; Test-Retest reliability; Validation studies; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/a0016063

This article introduces an instrument for the indirect assessment of positive and negative affect, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT). This test draws on participant ratings of the extent to which artificial words subjectively convey various emotions. Factor analyses of these ratings yielded two independent factors that can be interpreted as implicit positive and negative affect. The corresponding scales show adequate internal consistency, test-retest reliability, stability (Study 1), and construct validity (Study 2). Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate that the IPANAT also measures state variance. Finally, Study 5 provides criterion-based validity by demonstrating that correlations between implicit affect and explicit affect are higher under conditions of spontaneous responding than under conditions of reflective responding to explicit affect scales. The present findings suggest that the IPANAT is a reliable and valid measure with a straightforward application procedure.