Protecting the Science: The Affect Misattribution Procedure as an Implicit Research Technique

By Aaron Reid
March 5, 2014
In both the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and Evaluative Priming (EP) techniques there is always a right answer to the judgment that is required from respondents. In the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) primes are used to influence a judgment, however there is no right answer to the judgment. Nonetheless, the participant’s answer is indirectly and uncontrollably (mostly) dependent on the preceding prime and therefore the AMP qualifies as an implicit research technique.

The Affect Misattribution Procedure Technique

Let’s continue to use the racial stereotype example to illustrate the AMP technique. In a typical application of AMP, participants are asked to make judgments on affectively “neutral” images. For academic studies in the US, these figures have commonly been Chinese language characters.
However, from a global market research perspective the use of Chinese characters is problematic. But any neutral or ambiguous figure can suffice – think of a Rorsarch type image that is open to participant interpretation.

Priming and Automatic Associations

The judgments required include assessments of whether the figure is positive or negative, for example, but other attribute continuums could be used as well (e.g. high quality versus low quality). When a participant sees an ambiguous figure on the screen they are asked to make a judgment on whether the image belongs in one of the two categories.
A prime, such as a white face or a black face, precedes the presentation of the ambiguous figure and the automatic associations with the prime influence the participants’ judgments on the neutral image. If someone has a negative bias against white faces, then judgments on the neutral image following a white face prime, are more likely to be negative.

Despite Conscious Judgments, AMP is Implicit

From a market research application perspective, imagine a brand, product or package serving as the prime in your study. The responses to ambiguous figures following exposure to your prime are an implicit measure of consumer attitudes toward your brand, product or package.
The AMP qualifies as an implicit measure because it fits the criteria of being indirect, uncontrollable (mostly) and not deliberate. The fact that there is a conscious judgment being made that does not require a correct response is not a disqualifier for AMP as an implicit method.
The conscious evaluation is being made on a “non-target” stimulus – that is, not the race (or brand from an MRX application perspective) of interest. Rather, that independent judgment is influenced implicitly by the previous prime, and therefore the associations “bleed onto” the neutral image thereby providing insight on the automatic associations with the prime.
This last point provides a good segue into the description of some recent #mrx techniques that are positioned as implicit research methodologies when they are not. For greater detail on what qualifies as an implicit research technique see “Is it implicit?” The next post on timed responses to judgments illustrates how incorporating response times into your measures can enhance your explicit techniques, but does not reveal the implicit nature of an attitude.




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Founder & CEO, Sentient Decision Science, Inc.


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