Implicit association

A link between two categories, measured by reaction time rather than by self-report. In an Implicit Association Test the respondent sorts words against a clock. Where the pairing is already wired in, sorting is fast. Where the pairing fights the wiring, sorting is measurably slower, by fractions of a second that cannot be felt or performed.

The reason this matters to a course about shame is what it takes off the table. A result of this kind cannot be explained as a considered position, so it cannot be answered with a better argument. It is evidence about what was installed and when, not about what the person carrying it has decided.

Source: The finding this course uses is E. J. R. David and Sumie Okazaki (2010), “Activation and automaticity of colonial mentality,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40(4), 850 to 887, whose third study used an Implicit Association Test and reported automatic association of pleasantness and superiority with American culture, and unpleasantness and inferiority with Filipino culture. Paid, at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00601.x . Honest note: implicit association tests are argued about in psychology as instruments, and this course has not audited that debate. It reports the 2010 result as its authors reported it.

First used in: 2.5 · The reflex underneath the opinion