Autism-Related Implicit Association Test

Implicit Association Tests (IAT; Greenwald et al., 1998) are used to probe automatic associations between cognitive concepts (e.g. Black, White) and attributes (e.g. good, bad). In this study, we developed an IAT based on that from Jones et al., (2021) to examine whether participants unconsciously associate autism diagnostic labels with unpleasant personal attributes. The target words used for each category were taken from Jones et al., (2021).

Following the procedures of Jones et al., (2021), our IAT task used a five-block design. In the first block, participants categorized words (e.g. “Neurotypical”, “Autistic”) based on diagnostic concepts (“Typically Developing” and “Autism Spectrum”) presented on the left and right sides of the screen. Participants pressed the “e” key to categorize a term as “Typically Developing” or the “i” key to categorize it as “Autism Spectrum”. The second block focused on personal attributes, with participants categorizing words (e.g. “Friendly,” “Awkward”) as either “Pleasant” or “Unpleasant.” In the third block, the concept and attribute categories were displayed simultaneously in a prejudice consistent manner (e.g. “Typically Developing or Pleasant” on the left of the screen, “Autism Spectrum or Unpleasant” on the right of the screen), and participants categorized both concept and attribute words one at a time as they appeared. The fourth block was identical to the first block, except the positioning of the two concepts was reversed, with participants pressing the “e” key to categorize a word as “Autism Spectrum” and the “i” key to categorize a word as “Typically Developing”. In the fifth block, the diagnostic concept and attribute terms were displayed simultaneously in a **prejudice inconsistent manner **(e.g. “Autism Spectrum or Pleasant” on the left, “Typically Developing or Unpleasant” on the right), and again participants categorized stimulus words into their respective categories.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

Cheng, Y., Dwyer, P., & Keating, C. T. (pre-print). Factors underlying differences in autism knowledge, explicit stigma, and implicit stigma across Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and the United States. PsyArXiv

Jones, D. R., DeBrabander, K. M., & Sasson, N. J. (2021). Effects of autism acceptance training on explicit and implicit biases toward autism. Autism, 25(5), 1246-1261.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320984896

This task is the same as above but with a counterbalanced order (see the first image below). In the first block, participants categorized words (e.g. “Autistic”, Neurotypical”) based on diagnostic concepts (“Autism Spectrum”, "“Typically Developing”) presented on the left and right sides of the screen. Participants pressed the “e” key to categorize a term as "Autism Spectrum" or the “i” key to categorize it as "Typically Developing”. The second block focused on personal attributes, with participants categorizing words (e.g. “Friendly,” “Awkward”) as either “Pleasant” or “Unpleasant.” In the third block, the concept and attribute categories were displayed simultaneously in a prejudice inconsistent manner (e.g. “Autism Spectrum or Pleasant” on the left of the screen, “Typically Developing or Unpleasant” on the right of the screen), and participants categorized both concept and attribute words one at a time as they appeared. The fourth block was identical to the first block, except the positioning of the two concepts was reversed, with participants pressing the “e” key to categorize a word as “Typically Developing” and the “i” key to categorize a word as “Autism Spectrum”. In the fifth block, the diagnostic concept and attribute terms were displayed simultaneously in a prejudice consistent manner (e.g. “Typically Developing or Pleasant” on the left, “Autism Spectrum or Unpleasant” on the right), and again participants categorized stimulus words into their respective categories.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

Cheng, Y., Dwyer, P., & Keating, C. T. (pre-print). Factors underlying differences in autism knowledge, explicit stigma, and implicit stigma across Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and the United States. PsyArXiv.

Jones, D. R., DeBrabander, K. M., & Sasson, N. J. (2021). Effects of autism acceptance training on explicit and implicit biases toward autism. Autism, 25(5), 1246-1261.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320984896