Estimating the reliability and stability of cognitive processes contributing to responses on the Implicit Association Test

Implicit measures were initially assumed to assess stable individual differences, but other perspectives posit that they reflect context-dependent processes. This pre-registered research investigates whether the cognitive processes contributing to responses on the race Implicit Association Test are stable over time and reliably measured using multinomial processing tree modeling. We applied two models – the Quad model and the Process Dissociation Procedure – to six datasets (N = 2,036), each collected over two occasions, examined the within-measurement reliability and between-measurement stability of model parameters, and meta-analyzed the results. Parameters reflecting accuracy-oriented processes demonstrate adequate reliability and stability, which suggests these processes are relatively stable within individuals. Parameters reflecting evaluative associations demonstrate poor stability but modest reliability, which suggests that associations are either context-dependent or stable but noisily-measured. These findings suggest that processes contributing to implicit racial bias differ in temporal stability, which has practical implications for predicting behavior using the Implicit Association Test.