Methodological Issues in the Validation of Implicit Measures: Comment on De Houwer, Teige-Mocigemba, Spruyt, and Moors (2009)

• Published in: Psychological bulletin 2009-05, Vol.135 (3), p.369-372
• Main Authors: Gawronski, Bertram, LeBel, Etienne P, Peters, Kurt R, Banse, Rainer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ambiguity; Association; Attitude; Attribution; Automatism; Causality; Correlation; Correlation analysis; Criteria; Cues; Emotions; Human; Humans; Implicit Measures; Internal-External Control; Manipulation; Measurement; Measures (Individuals); Memory - physiology; Personality Tests - standards; Priming; Psychological aspects; Psychological factors; Psychological Studies; Psychology; Psychology - methods; Reading Comprehension; Reproducibility of Results; Research methods; Scores; Task Performance and Analysis; Test Validity; Validation; Validation studies; Validity
• ISSN: 0033-2909; 1939-1455
• DOI: 10.1037/a0014820

J. De Houwer, S. Teige-Mocigemba, A. Spruyt, and A. Moors's (2009) normative analysis of implicit measures provides an excellent clarification of several conceptual ambiguities surrounding the validation and use of implicit measures. The current comment discusses an important, yet unacknowledged, implication of J. De Houwer et al.'s analysis, namely, that investigations addressing the proposed implicitness criterion (i.e., does the relevant psychological attribute influence measurement outcomes in an automatic fashion?) will be susceptible to fundamental misinterpretations if they are conducted independently of the proposed what criterion (i.e., is the measurement outcome causally produced by the psychological attribute the measurement procedure was designed to assess?). As a solution, it is proposed that experimental validation studies should be combined with a correlational approach in order to determine whether a given manipulation influenced measurement scores via variations in the relevant psychological attribute or via secondary sources of systematic variance.