International Journal of Market Research Vol.

55 Issue 4

Let their fingers do the talking?

Using the Implicit Association Test in market
research

Aiden P. Gregg
University of Southampton
James Klymowsky, Dominic Owens and Alex Perryman
Seven Stones

Self-report methodologies – such as surveys and interviews – elicit responses

that are vulnerable to a number of standard biases. These biases include social
desirability, self-deception and a lack of self-insight. However, indirect measures,
such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT), offer a potential means of bypassing
such biases. Here, we evaluate the scope for using the IAT in market research,
drawing on recent empirical findings. We conclude that the IAT meets several
desirable criteria: it yields consistent results, possesses predictive power, offers
unique advantages, is relevant to commercial issues and poses no insuperable
challenges to adoption.

Introduction
The most common way to tap the thoughts and feelings of participants
in market research is to ask them questions (Bradburn et al. 2004). The
ubiquity of self-report ‘techniques’ – including surveys and interview –
confirms the general consensus: that what people say about themselves is
revealing.
Yet not always: self-reports can sometimes yield biased or false data. For
one thing, the manner in which researchers ask a question has long been
known to shape the nature of the answer respondents provide (Schuman &
Presser 1996). In addition, three major biases can compromise the validity
of self-reports. First, respondents may give socially desirable answers to
sensitive questions (Steenkamp et al. 2010; Tourangeau & Ting 2007). For

Received (in revised form): 21 October 2012

© 2013 The Market Research Society 23

DOI: 10.2501/IJMR-2013-013
Let their fingers do the talking?

example, enquiries about ‘green’ or other cause-related topics can elicit

answers in keeping with what respondents believe researchers want to
hear (Nancarrow et al. 2001). Second, respondents may deceive themselves
into believing they hold appropriate attitudes even when they do not
actually hold them (Greenwald 1980). For example, a respondent may
wish to flatter themselves into believing (Sedikides & Gregg 2008) that
they are ‘greener’ than their consumer behaviour would indicate. Finally,
respondents may simply lack insight into what their real attitudes are
(Wilson 2002). For example, respondents may lack any considered opinion
on ‘green’ issues, and instead make up something on the spot (Converse
1970). In all three cases, respondents’ explicit attitudes – those they overtly
state or consciously believe – do not fully correspond with their implicit
attitudes – their concealed or unconscious counterparts.
Knowing that self-report need not tell the whole story, researchers have
developed alternative assessment techniques. Some, such as randomised
response procedures (Lensvelt-Mulders et al. 2005) discourage socially
desirable answers. Others, such as projective techniques (Mariampolski
2001), encourage spontaneous truthful admissions. Here, we focus on
another class of techniques: indirect measures (Wittenbrink & Schwarz
2007). In particular, we address the Implicit Association Test (IAT:
Greenwald et al. 1998; Gregg 2008), and its application to market research
(Dimofte 2010).
Indirect measures, in general, can offer several benefits to researchers.
First, many indirect measures are unobtrusive. This means that respondents
are unlikely to suspect they are being assessed. Hence, they are unlikely to
manipulate their responses. Second, many indirect measures are robust.
This means that, even when respondents are aware that they are being
assessed, the technique resists attempts at manipulation (as is the case
with the IAT). Finally, all indirect measures, given their special modus
operandi, tend to tap in to the more primitive background of the mind, as
opposed to a more sophisticated foreground (Searle 1992; Greenwald &
Banaji 1995; Kahneman 2011). This means that such techniques reflect
mental processes that are, among other things, relatively unconscious,
fast, habitual, associative, impulsive or implicit, as opposed to relatively
conscious, slow, novel, propositional, reflective or explicit. True, the
distinction is not absolute. For example, explicit and implicit attitudes on
many topics correlate reasonably well (Nosek 2007). Still, there is enough
of a distinction between the background and foreground of the mind to
ensure that this is not always so, with interesting implications for market
research.

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The upshot, as we shall see, is this: relative to direct measures such as

self-report, indirect measures such as the IAT can be more valid (because they
are more unobtrusive or robust) and more informative (because they reflect
background processes) than self-report. This combination of virtues makes
them a potentially useful addition to the toolkit of the market researchers.
We do not go so far as to claim that the results of the IAT are generally more
‘real’ than the results of self-report. However, we do go so far as to claim that
they can under many circumstances provide extra insight.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Like many other indirect measures (Fazio 2007; Wittenbrink & Schwarz
2007), the IAT relies on respondents’ reaction time (RT) while providing
responses rather than on the content of the responses provided. It is
precisely this feature that makes indirect measures indirect.
The IAT, run on computer, takes the form of a rapid-fire sorting task.
Respondents are instructed to tap different keys to sort items – either
words or pictures – into four corresponding categories, as quickly and
accurately as possible. The categories are presented in two different
configurations, or IAT blocks. The average response time for each block
is measured and compared. Quicker sorting in one block versus the other
indicates a particular pattern of associations. Such associations, in turn,
reflect implicit attitudes. So, any differences in average RT are interpreted
as indicating that respondents mentally associated category items in one
way rather than another. Any respondent who makes too many errors in
either block can be excluded or required to redo the IAT.
Here is a concrete illustration. Suppose a market researcher wished
to assess implicit attitudes towards the rival cola brands Coke and Pepsi.
In particular, suppose she were interested in two dimensions of those
attitudes, one specific – value for money – and the other general – overall
favourability. The researcher could capture the value for money dimension
using the attribute categories Cheap and Expensive and the overall
favourability dimension using attribute categories Better and Worse. The
different sorting configurations, or IAT blocks, would enable the products
Coke and Pepsi to be evaluated on these dimensions relative to one another.
If respondents sorted items more quickly when Coke and Cheap and
Pepsi and Expensive were paired, than they did when Coke and Expensive
and Pepsi and Cheap were paired, this would suggest that they implicitly
regarded Coke as offering superior value for money over Pepsi. Similarly,
if respondents sorted items more quickly when Coke and Better and Pepsi

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Let their fingers do the talking?

and Worse were presented than they did for Coke and Worse and Pepsi
and Better then this would suggest they implicitly regarded Coke more
favourably overall than Pepsi (i.e. ‘more’ better and ‘less’ worse).
This brings us to the question of what it means when explicit attitudes
(e.g. as measured by self-report) and implicit attitudes (e.g. as measured by
the IAT) converge or diverge. In the case of convergence, a researcher has
a ‘two thumbs up’ situation. Two sources of data reinforce each other. The
background and foreground of the mind are probably aligned. The biases
of social desirability, self-deception and lack of self-insight are likely to be
absent. Hence, a researcher can have relatively greater trust in the validity
of their attitude assessment. In the case of divergence, the two sources of
data are contradicting one another, suggesting that the self-report may be
compromised by one or another response bias. Hence, the validity of the
explicit attitude assessment becomes suspect, and further investigation may
be warranted.

What value does the IAT have to offer market researchers?

The value of any research tool – including the IAT in market research –
depends upon several factors. Chief among them are yielding consistent
results, having predictive power, offering unique advantages, showing
applied promise and not presenting any insuperable challenges. Below we
examine how the IAT fares in these critical regards.

Consistent results
First, IAT results show good levels of reliability (internal consistency).
Scores from parallel halves of the same IAT correspond well (average
α = 0.79; Hofmann et al. 2005). Second, IAT results also show satisfactory
levels of reproducibility. Scores obtained on different occasions correspond
moderately well (average r = 0.56; Nosek et al. 2007). True, analogous
values for direct measures are often even higher (Anastasi 1996). However,
as an indirect measure relying on RTs, which are intrinsically variable,
the IAT performs more than adequately, and outperforms other indirect
measures (De Houwer & De Bruycker 2007).

Algorithmic robustness
One might suspect that, because IAT effects involve RT, individual
differences in the swiftness or sluggishness of respondents might diminish

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or augment the magnitude of the IAT effects they exhibit. Indeed,

some evidence supports this suspicion. For example, IATs that explore
unrelated topics yield effects that are nonetheless correlated (McFarland
& Crouch 2002). This could only be the case if such IATs were capturing
respondent-specific variance.
Note, however, that the IAT index is not a simple RT, but a
within-respondent difference in RT (i.e. average RT in one block minus
average RT in the other). As such, it already partly controls for individual
differences. However, it is possible to further control for them by
additionally computing an estimate of variability in RT across the IAT
as a whole, and then dividing the IAT index by that estimate. This is the
basis of the so-called D-algorithm (Greenwald et al. 2003). Use of this
algorithm has been empirically shown to minimise the impact of individual
differences (Cai et al. 2004). Thus, IAT effects can be computed using a
robust algorithm that controls for simple confounds.
Nonetheless, it is worth noting that, however it is computed, no IAT score
is by itself self-explanatory. Each stands in need of contextual interpretation.
This is because the IAT – unlike, say, an IQ test or a pregnancy test – does
not come in one definitive version that has previously been administered to
a large relevant population. Hence, the IAT is not formally a ‘test’ (Fiedler
et al. 2006). For example, if someone scored 140 on a standardised IQ test,
that would put them in the top 1% of test-takers; or if a newlywed bride
tested positive on a proven pregnancy test, a new baby would be on the
cards. In contrast, if respondents showed an average score of X ms on a given
IAT, then the diagnostic implications would be less clear. Variations across
different IATs ensure that no score carries one universal meaning (Blanton
& Jaccard 2006). That said, plausible interpretations are still possible. For
example, a raw IAT score near 500 ms would nearly always indicate a large
and important effect, and a raw IAT score near 0 ms a trivial or null effect.
In addition, one could use scores from control IATs that show large implicit
preferences (e.g. Coke vs. Water) or small implicit preferences (e.g. Coke
vs. Pepsi) to contextualise scores from IATs investigating unknown implicit
preferences (e.g. Coke vs. New Cola) (cf. Gregg & Lepore 2012).

Predictive power
If the IAT can predict outcomes of consequence at above chance level, then
its validity would be fundamentally vindicated (Greenwald et al. 2006).
An interim meta-analysis of 122 relevant IAT studies shows that this is so
on the whole (Greenwald et al. 2009). Moreover, in 32 of these studies

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exploring racial prejudice – a topic where one might anticipate response

biases – the validity of the IAT significantly exceeded that of self-report.
It is not implausible to suppose that, here, white respondents, completing
sensitive self-report measures of anti-black sentiment, might have provided
answers somewhat tainted by social desirability and self-deception, thereby
explaining the predictive underperformance of those measures. The claim
that the IAT resists the effects of social desirability is already supported by
research showing that its results are relatively hard to fake (Steffens 2004).
Furthermore, spontaneous attempts to produce false results on the part of
naive respondents typically fail (Kim 2003). If respondents are told how
the IAT works, and given the opportunity to practise, then it is possible
to engineer false results (Fiedler & Bluemke 2005), but such determined
fakery can usually be detected from tell-tale patterns in respondents’ RT
data (Cvencek et al. 2010).
If the IAT is robust to social desirability concerns, it has a promising role
to play as an assessment tool where sensitive commercial topics – such as
personal hygiene, weight loss, contraceptive use and alcohol consumption
– are being investigated. Some evidence already illustrates this value. For
example, Richetin and colleagues (2007) used the IAT to assess participants’
implicit preferences for fruit – a ‘healthy’ food people should eat – or
candy – an ‘unhealthy’ food they should avoid. Their results showed that
the IAT predicted food choice over and above explicit measures.

Unique advantages
Even though the IAT is robust against social desirability – and hence can be
more valid than self-report – its unique advantages are perhaps still to be
traced to its capacity to tap in to the background of the mind, and thereby
furnish unique information that would not otherwise be available. Below,
we provide several examples where this capacity has been empirically
demonstrated.

Detecting unconscious attitudes

If the IAT can detect attitudes of which people are themselves unconscious,
then it should also have the capacity to predict behaviours stemming
from those attitudes that respondents themselves cannot predict. And it
does. For example, IAT scores predicted which of two candidates – the
right-wing Silvio Berlusconi or the left-wing Francesco Rutelli – initially
undecided voters later voted for in a Milanese election (Arcuri et al. 2008).

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Moreover, this finding was not restricted to voting: it also applied to Italian
respondents undecided about the opening of a US military base in Vicenza
(Galdi et al. 2008). Hence, there is reason to believe that the IAT might
also, in cases where consumers are explicitly undecided about which of
two rival products to purchase, predict what decision they will ultimately
make, by detecting underlying propensities that those consumers cannot
mentally access.

Uncovering habitual preferences

Whereas deliberate behaviour – rooted in careful reflection – involves
foreground mental processes, habitual behaviour – requiring little thought
– involves background mental processes. The IAT should therefore
‘specialise’ in predicting habitual behaviour. Conner and colleagues (2007)
identified one way in which it does so. They assessed the degree to which
participants were in the habit of eating fruits or snacks. They then found
that, the stronger the habit, the better the IAT predicted the consumption
of either one or the other, both in everyday life and under controlled
laboratory conditions. Thus, the IAT may be of interest to market
researchers interested in diagnosing habits, including habits respondents
might not wish to report overtly because they might be embarrassed to
admit to them.

Unmasking hidden impulses

Impulsive behaviour involves background mental processes, too. One way
to make such background processes predominate is to make laboratory
participants mentally busy. This can be done by having them complete a
taxing task. The ‘cognitive load’ imposed by such a task depletes mental
resources. This selectively impairs the foreground processes, as more
primitive background processes need fewer mental resources to operate.
Under cognitive load, consumer decisions indeed become more impulsive
(Vohs & Faber 2007). In this connection, Hofmann et al. (2007) showed
that, after participants had performed a task that mentally ‘wore them
out’ (see Baumeister et al. 2008) – thereby making them more impulsive –
the IAT became a relatively better predictor of candy consumption. Note
that, when reporting explicit attitudes, respondents are not usually under
cognitive load. Hence, at that time, they may lack introspective insight into
their impulsive behaviour, and fail to predict it well, as some independent
research confirms (Ariely & Loewenstein 2006).

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Applied promise in market research

The above studies bear out the promise of the IAT generally. We now focus
on studies where the IAT has been directly employed to address issues
arising in marketing or consumer research.

Differentiating competing brands

Using consecutive IATs, Gattol et al. (2011) assessed respondents’
implicit perceptions for one car brand versus two others. They examined
six different attributes represented in three different ways and some
intriguing findings emerged, e.g. Ford was more ‘aggressive’ than Audi,
which was less ‘aggressive’ than BMW. These findings generalised across
different stimuli (e.g. words or pictures) and individual IATs proved to
be internally consistent. In addition, Priluck and Till (2010) examined
the capacity of the IAT and self-report to distinguish between (a) a
high-equity and low-equity brand, and (b) two high-equity brands.
Whereas self-report did the former, only the IAT did the latter.
Respondents in market research may struggle to articulate distinctions
between brands that differ only subtly; the IAT shows promise as a robust
technique that can do so.

Intangible brand values

The IAT has been employed to uncover intangible brand values that
respondents might not be willing or able to express. For example, Friese
et al. (2006) found that, although participants explicitly preferred either
branded or generic products about equally, the greater majority of them
implicitly preferred branded products. In the same vein, Perkins et al.
(2008) found that, although Polish respondents reported preferring foreign
consumer products (e.g. Marlboro cigarettes), they nonetheless showed an
implicit preference for domestic products (e.g. Sobieski cigarettes). Again,
IAT findings suggest that the picture provided by conventional self-report
instruments may be incomplete.

Segmenting consumer groups

Brunel et al. (2004) showed that IAT scores could be used to segment
consumer groups. They found, for example, that Apple Mac users showed
stronger implicit preferences for their machines than Microsoft PC users
did for theirs. This supports the anecdotal contention that Apple Mac users

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identify more strongly with their brand. Thus, the IAT may serve as a good
promising index of brand loyalty.
These researchers also found that white and black respondents
showed different implicit and explicit reactions to advertisements for
sports footwear. On the one hand, blacks but not whites reported an
explicit preference for advertisements with black spokespersons. On the
other hand, whites but not blacks showed an implicit preference for
advertisements with white spokespersons. One interpretation of this result
is that white respondents were reluctant to report a racial preference
that they possessed at a background level, whereas black respondents
reported a racial preference they did not really have at a background level.
Had an indirect measure such as an IAT not been employed, such subtle
possibilities – which can critically inform market segmentation on the
basis of demographics – would have been less apparent.

Tapping in to experiential attitudes

Research shows that attitudes rooted in concrete experience tend to be
stronger and more predictive of behaviour (Fazio et al. 1982). Larger IAT
effects seem to reflect the presence of such attitudes. For example, in one
study, Maison et al. (2004) separated participants who could distinguish
Coke and Pepsi in a blind taste test from those who could not – a sign
of differences in experiential familiarity. They found that, whereas the
‘distinguishers’ had stronger implicit preferences than ‘non-distinguishers’,
their explicit preferences hardly differed. Hence, the IAT may pick
up potentially predictive information about consumer attitudes that
self-reports do not.

Tapping in to ambivalent attitudes

We mentioned earlier that, if explicit and implicit attitudes converge, one
has a reassuring ‘two thumbs up’ situation. In contrast, if they diverge,
complications are likely. In particular, divergence between explicit and
implicit attitudes may reflect psychological ambivalence, which in turn
may reduce the predictability of consumer choices from explicit attitudes
alone.
For example, Friese et al. (2006) found that, when participants’ explicit
and implicit preferences matched, their explicit preferences reliably
predicted whether they chose a branded or generic product, regardless of
whether they chose slowly (i.e. reflectively) or quickly (i.e. impulsively).

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However, when participants’ explicit and implicit preferences clashed, their

explicit preferences predicted whether they chose a branded or generic
product only if they chose slowly; if they chose quickly, then explicit
preferences were no longer predictive. The implication is that, when one
has a ‘one thumb up, one thumb down’ situation, explicit preferences may
no longer predict consumer choices under conditions where background
processes prevail – such as when people make impulsive decisions. If this
finding generalises, then explicit attitudes towards products bought on
impulse – such as candy at a checkout, or items whose availability is limited
– will be a poorer guide to purchasing behaviour when people’s implicit
attitudes towards those products point in the opposite direction.

Large effects
Finally, the IAT delivers a lot of ‘bang for one’s buck’. Reliable effects
emerge after only a handful of trials, which means that, unlike with some
other indirect measures, the performance of individual respondents can be
meaningfully differentiated (De Houwer & De Bruycker 2007). Moreover,
the IAT is ‘well tolerated’: respondents typically find it easy to complete
and do so eagerly. For example, hundreds of thousands have completed
IATs online, out of sheer curiosity (Nosek et al. 2002; for user-friendly
demonstrations, see also http://www.implicitresearch.co.uk/test/).

Challenges to adoption
Clearly, the IAT possesses some unique advantages, and shows promise
in market research specifically. However, like any research instrument, it
comes with a number of challenges of its own, which must be overcome if
it is to be widely adopted.
The IAT’s first challenge is logistical. Indirect measures like the IAT,
because they collect RT information over many trials, take more time
to run. They also require some technical apparatus to run on. Hence,
market researchers must economise as regards which implicit attitudes
they choose to study. This said, many procedures that add diagnostic value
(e.g. eye-tracking) would be used sparingly, and this is hardly an argument
against using them. Moreover, research studies show the feasibility of
running several IATs back-to-back (Gattol et al. 2011).
A second challenge is structural. The IAT, in its original form, lends itself
most naturally to research where the relative merits of two key targets (or
a small number of key targets, if several IATs are used) are being assessed.

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This is because each IAT has an intrinsically this-versus-that format. Before

a researcher can examine associations towards this – some target of interest
– they must first identify some that – an alternative to contrast it against.
Although this structural constraint can usually be satisfied, it is undeniably
a drawback. A researcher must artfully devise contrasting category names
(and items belonging to those categories) to capture a dimension of interest
(e.g. Better and Worse for favourability). Constructing high-quality IATs
demands a degree of semantic intuition.
However, IAT researchers have long been aware of this constraint, and
have sought to transcend it by developing novel IAT variants. Perhaps the
leading variant is the Single-Category IAT (SC-IAT; Karpinski & Steinman
2006; Bluemke & Friese 2008). This functions exactly like a standard
IAT, but features three categories instead of four. The SC-IAT successfully
predicts past and future purchasing behaviour (Steinman & Karpinski
2008; see also Hofmann et al. 2007; Galdi et al. 2008). Another variant is
the Simple IAT (Blanton et al. 2006, Study 2). The idea here is to replace
two of the four IAT categories with unrelated neutral categories, so that
the association between remaining two target categories can be selectively
assessed. A third variant is the Go No-Go Association Test (GNAT: Nosek
& Banaji 2001). This features only two categories per block. Respondents’
goal is to classify items accurately within a tight time limit rather than
quickly without making errors. Like the original IAT, the GNAT possesses
incremental predictive validity (Eastwick et al. 2011). These and other IAT
variants (e.g. Sriram & Greenwald 2009) all provide ways to get around
the structural limitation of the original IAT. Even more desirable would be
an IAT variant that permits the associations between any number of targets
and attributes to be flexibly assessed. With this in mind, two of the present
authors have developed a truly ‘Multiple’ Implicit Association test (MIAT;
Klymowsky & Gregg 2012), in which respondents classify two items per
trial into multiple possible categories.
A third challenge is conceptual. The IAT is not a pure measure of
association. It has confounds of its own. Studies show, for example, that
IAT effects can be partly driven by differences in how much categories
on one side of the screen stand out relative to categories on the other
side of the screen – a confound technically known as salience asymmetry
(Rothermund & Wentura 2004; see also Han et al. 2010, for another
confound). Although researchers differ over how much of a problem this
presents (Greenwald et al. 2005) it can be reduced by choosing categories
appropriately (e.g. using the attribute categories Safe vs. Risky rather than
Safe vs. Unsafe, given that the ‘Un-’ prefix makes a category stand out)

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or by also including an extra control IAT in their battery (e.g. featuring

the attribute categories Word vs. Non-Word, which would reflect salience
asymmetry only). Furthermore, the fact that the IAT proves meaningfully
predictive (Greenwald et al. 2009) proves that the IAT is not fatally
undermined by any confound. Finally, Gregg and Lepore (2012) recently
showed that IATs reflect more than just salience asymmetries. Half their
participants completed two target IATs designed to capture meaningful
associations, one towards health and disease (categories: Health, Disease,
Good, Bad), the other towards even numbers and odd numbers (categories:
Even, Odd, Good, Bad). The remaining participants completed two control
IATs, designed to capture salience asymmetries only (categories: Health,
Disease, Word, Non-Word) and (categories: Even, Odd, Word, Non-Word).
Whereas on the target IATs, the Health-Disease preference was stronger
than the Even-Odd preference, on control IATs, the opposite pattern
emerged. This proves that implicit preferences cannot be reduced to
salience asymmetry artefacts, as IATs designed to capture each produce
effects that go in opposite directions.

Our experience of the IAT

The authors have successfully employed the IAT in commercial research
at Seven Stones.1 Some of their studies have taken the form of wide-scale
surveys, where the IAT has been delivered remotely online. Others have taken
the form of qualitative investigations, where the IAT has been delivered face
to face. In the latter case, the IAT results can be communicated to respondents
immediately, and be the basis of further discussion. In this way, the IAT
facilitates the collection of further qualitative data that would otherwise be
missed. Of course, when administered as part of a survey, the IAT results can
be analysed at an aggregate level, without providing individual feedback.
So far, the authors have used the IAT primarily to explore brand
perceptions, and other marketing concepts, among physicians and nurses
who administer prescription drugs. The goal was to check for attitudes
they might be either reluctant to express or unable to mentally access. The
impetus for undertaking such research was the growing recognition that
non-rational factors – driven by the background processes we referred to
above – can influence administration decisions (Kelly & Rupert 2009; Rod
& Saunders 2009).

1
  The first author served as an external consultant for some of this research.

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In one case, we used the IAT to explore physicians’ attitudes to different

drugs, in an effort to explain why their typical prescribing practice was
not in accord with the UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence
(NICE) guidelines. In the therapy area in question, the guidelines stated
that physicians should prescribe a drug from one initial class, I, and then,
if no improvements were seen, prescribe drugs from a subsequent class,
S. However, if a drug from class I failed, physicians typically switched to
another drug from that class, rather than any drug from the ‘next’ class,
S. When asked about this, physicians reported an explicit preference for
all drugs in class I over class S, on each of three dimensions investigated
– namely, efficacy, manageability and trustworthiness. However, the IAT
uncovered one implicit preference in the reverse direction: class S drugs were
construed as implicitly more efficacious than class I drugs. Further analysis
and qualitative discussion led to the conclusion that physicians were following
a non-rational prescribing heuristic: they were unwilling to prescribe drug Z
too early because, considering it more efficacious, they wished to hold it in
reserve. Their previous self-reports of efficacy may have been contaminated
by social desirability concerns or by defensive rationalisation.

Conclusion
Self-report methodologies, though useful, are vulnerable to several biases.
These biases include social desirability, self-deception and a lack of
self-insight. However, indirect measures, such as the Implicit Association
Test (IAT), offer a potential means of bypassing such biases. Here, we
have evaluated the scope for using the IAT in market research, drawing on
recent empirical findings. We conclude that the IAT meets several desirable
criteria: it yields consistent results, possesses predictive power, offers
unique advantages, shows applied promise in market research, and poses
no challenges to adoption that cannot be overcome.

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About the authors

Dr Aiden P. Gregg is a lecturer in psychology at the University of
Southampton, where he is a member of the Centre for Research on Self
and Identity. His research interests include indirect measures of attitude
and self-related motivations.
James Klymowsky is Head of Digital at Seven Stones (UK). He has
engineered platforms and provided solutions for some of the largest
pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Dominic Owens is Head of Strategy at Seven Stones (UK). He has 20
years of experience in branding and communication, whether in-house, as
a senior client, or as a freelance marketing consultant.
Alex Perryman is Chairman of Seven Stones (UK), a pharmaceutical
advertising agency based in London.
Address correspondence to: Aiden P. Gregg, University of Southampton,
Department of Psychology, Highfield Campus, Southampton SO17 1BJ,
United Kingdom.
Email: a.gregg@soton.ac.uk

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