A Critical Comparison of Selected Implicit Measurement Methods

Indirect, implicit measurement methods facilitate access to individual unconscious mental processes. In recent years, these methods have become more popular and are now broadly used in personality and social psychology. Approximately 20 implicit measurement methods have been developed, and new ones are being introduced continuously. So far, research on indirect measuring methods has focused on the development of new methods as well as improving existing ones. However, different methods have different strengths and the associated mental structures differ. This article provides a critical overview of implicit measurement methods by comparing them to selected criteria, to support the choice of method for a specific research purpose. Furthermore, we assess the suitability of the discussed implicit methods for marketing research. In this context, we show the superior potential of the affective misattribution procedure, a common example of a category of tasks used to measure attitudes implicitly. The affective misattribution procedure is an affective priming paradigm that, unlike other affective priming variants, depends on the response interference and has good internal consistency (.70 < α < .90) and produces robust effects (average d = 1.25).