An inkblot for attitudes: Affect misattribution as implicit measurement.
Abstract
Misattributions people make about their own affective reactions can be used to measure attitudes implicitly. Combining the logic of projective tests with advances in priming research, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was sensitive to normatively favorable and unfavorable evaluations (Experiments 1-4), and the misattribution effect was strong at both fast and slow presentation rates (Experiments 3 and 4). Providing further evidence of validity, the AMP was strongly related to individual differences in self-reported political attitudes and voting intentions (Experiment 5). In the socially sensitive domain of racial attitudes, the AMP showed in-group bias for Black and White participants. AMP performance correlated with explicit racial attitudes, a relationship that was moderated by motivations to control prejudice (Experiment 6). Across studies, the task was unaffected by direct warnings to avoid bias. Advantages of the AMP include large effect sizes, high reliability, ease of use, and resistance to correction attempts.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Like physiological measures, the validity of most indirect measures has been established via stimuli of known valence from self-report studies, creating the same inferential paradox described for physiological measures.
“like physiological measures, the validity of most indirect measures has been established via stimuli of known va- lence, and this knowledge came from studies using self-report measures (e.g., Fazio et al. 1986, Greenwald et al. 1998, Payne et al. 2005).This issue creates the same inferential paradox described for physiological measures.”
From Unawareness of Attitudes, Their Environmental Causes, and Their Behavioral Effects (2025) · cites this paper as Payne et al. 2005
Cites
Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.84.3.231 · Cited by 11,317 · cited 1× · see citing works
“This may be because participants are aware of the outcome of their attributions, but not the process ( Nisbett & Wilson, 1977 ).”
BackgroundImplicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes
Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.102.1.4 · Cited by 6,682 · see citing works
Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion.
Russell, J. A. (2003) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.110.1.145 · Cited by 6,113 · see citing works
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.45.3.513 · Cited by 4,952 · see citing works
Fazio, R. H., Jackson, J. R., Dunton, B. C., & Williams, C. J. (1995) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.6.1013 · Cited by 1,793 · cited 2× · see citing works
“However, among participants who are not particularly motivated to be unprejudiced, correspondence is more often observed (Banse & Gawronski, 2003; Dunton & Fazio, 1997; Fazio et al., 1995; Payne, 2001).”
BackgroundMethodMental contamination and mental correction: Unwanted influences on judgments and evaluations.
Wilson, T. D., & Brekke, N. (1994) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.117 · Cited by 1,157 · cited 2× · see citing works
“…that in order to correct judgments, people must (a) have an appropriate lay theory of how they might be biased, (b) be motivated to correct for its effects, and (c) have the opportunity or capacity to adjust their response (Martin et al., 1990; Wegener & Petty, 1997; Wilson & Brekke, 1994).”
BackgroundImplicit attitude measures: Consistency, stability, and convergent validity
Cunningham, W. A., Preacher, K. J., & Banaji, M. R. (2001) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00328 · Cited by 968 · see citing works
Wittenbrink, B., Judd, C. M., & Park, B. (1997) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.72.2.262 · Cited by 821 · cited 1× · see citing works
“By limiting monitoring and control, implicit measures can be extremely useful for studying socially sensitive attitudes such as prejudice (Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 1997).”
Background
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0013262 · Cited by 2,365 · see citing works
Hall, W. J., Chapman, M. V., Lee, K. M., Merino, Y. M., Thomas, T. W., Payne, B. K., Eng, E., Day, S. H., & Coyne-Beasley, T. (2015) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.2015.302903 · Cited by 2,176 · see citing works
Self-citationPositive Emotions Broaden and Build
Fredrickson, B. L. (2013) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-407236-7.00001-2 · Cited by 1,907 · see citing works
Impulse and Self-Control From a Dual-Systems Perspective
Hofmann, W., Friese, M., & Strack, F. (2009) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01116.x · Cited by 1,487 · see citing works
Happiness in Everyday Life: The Uses of Experience Sampling
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Hunter, J. (2003) · Journal of Happiness Studies · doi:10.1023/a:1024409732742 · Cited by 717 · see citing works
A meta-analysis of procedures to change implicit measures
Forscher, P. S., Lai, C. K., Axt, J. R., Ebersole, C. R., Herman, M., Devine, P. G., & Nosek, B. A. (2019) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspa0000160 · Cited by 700 · see citing works
Implicit cognition and addiction: a tool for explaining paradoxical behavior
Stacy, A. W., & Wiers, R. W. (2010) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131444 · Cited by 607 · see citing works
Implicit social cognition: from measures to mechanisms
Nosek, B. A., Hawkins, C. B., & Frazier, R. S. (2011) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.01.005 · Cited by 578 · see citing works
Nonconscious processes and health.
Sheeran, P., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Bargh, J. A. (2013) · Health Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0029203 · Cited by 579 · see citing works
The iterative reprocessing model: A multilevel framework for attitudes and evaluation
Cunningham, W. A., Zelazo, P. D., Packer, D. J., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2007) · Social Cognition · doi:10.1521/soco.2007.25.5.736 · Cited by 322 · see citing works
de Groot, J. H. B., Smeets, M. A. M., Rowson, M. J., Bulsing, P. J., Blonk, C. G., Wilkinson, J. E., & Semin, G. R. (2015) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797614566318 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
Ratner, K. G., Dotsch, R., Wigboldus, D. H. J., van Knippenberg, A., & Amodio, D. M. (2014) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0036498 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
Understanding and Using the Brief Implicit Association Test: Recommended Scoring Procedures
Nosek, B. A., Bar-Anan, Y., Sriram, N., Axt, J., & Greenwald, A. G. (2014) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0110938 · Cited by 179 · see citing works
“Other implicit measures In addition to Brief IATs measuring the three topics of interest, participants were randomly assigned to complete one or more of seven other implicit measures about the same topics – the IAT, Go/No-go Association Task (GNAT) [27], single-target (ST-IAT) [28], Sorting Paired Features [29], Evalu…”
MethodAs Pleasure Unfolds: Hedonic Responses to Tempting Food
Hofmann, W., van Koningsbruggen, G. M., Stroebe, W., Ramanathan, S., & Aarts, H. (2010) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797610389186 · Cited by 110 · see citing works
Predicting imminent suicidal thoughts and nonfatal attempts: The role of complexity
Ribeiro, J. D., Huang, X., Fox, K. R., Walsh, C. G., & Linthicum, K. P. (2019) · Clinical Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/2167702619838464 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
de Groot, J. H. B., Semin, G. R., & Smeets, M. A. M. (2014) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/a0033731 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
There’s Nothing Social about Social Priming: Derailing the “Train Wreck”
Sherman, J. W., & Rivers, A. M. (2021) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1080/1047840x.2021.1889312 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Gawronski, B., Peters, K. R., & LeBel, E. P. (2008) · Social and Personality Psychology Compass · doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00085.x · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Categorical Interoception: Perceptual Organization of Sensations From Inside
Petersen, S., Schroijen, M., Mölders, C., Zenker, S., & Van den Bergh, O. (2014) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797613519110 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Chemical communication of fear: A case of male-female asymmetry
de Groot, J. H. B., Semin, G. R., & Smeets, M. A. M. (2014) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/a0035950 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Guilty by mere similarity: assimilative effects of facial resemblance on automatic evaluation
Gawronski, B., & Quinn, K. A. (2013) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.07.016 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Witthöft, M., Kerstner, T., Ofer, J., Mier, D., Rist, F., Diener, C., & Bailer, J. (2016) · Clinical Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/2167702615593474 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
The differences between suicide ideators and suicide attempters: simple, complicated, or complex
Huang, X., Ribeiro, J. D., & Franklin, J. C. (2020) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/ccp0000498 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
How Do Indifferent Voters Decide? The Political Importance of Implicit Attitudes
Ryan, T. J. (2017) · American Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1111/ajps.12307 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Boukarras, S., Era, V., Aglioti, S. M., & Candidi, M. (2021) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-021-84280-z · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Unawareness of Attitudes, Their Environmental Causes, and Their Behavioral Effects
Gawronski, B., & Corneille, O. (2025) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-051324-031037 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Implicit bias for suicide persists after ideation resolves
Wells, T. T., Tucker, R. P., Kraines, M. A., Smith, L. M., & Unruh-Dawes, E. (2020) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112784 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Gravelle, C. D., Brooks, P. J., & Sawyer, J. E. (2025) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2025.104746 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Payne, B. K., Cheng, C. M., Govorun, O., & Stewart, B. D.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2005-09
- Volume
- 89
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 277-293
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W2041989676
- Cited by
- 1,371
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 56 · 2023: 64 · 2022: 60 · 2021: 81 · 2020: 131 · 2019: 102 · 2018: 85 · 2017: 84 · 2016: 92 · 2015: 75 · 2014: 101 · 2013: 78 · 2012: 80
- FWCI
- 64.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- Affect Misattribution Procedure, implicit attitude measurement, projective techniques, priming, political attitudes, voting intention, racial attitudes, in-group favoritism, bias resistance, self-reported attitudes
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Arousal, Association Learning, Attitude, Cues, Defense Mechanisms, Face, Female, Humans, Judgment, Male, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Projective Techniques, Reality Testing, Symbolism, Personal Construct Theory, Comprehension
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
