Should Explicit Attitudinal Measures Be Replaced
With Implicit Measures of Attitude?
The World Health Organization has calculated that over 800,000 people die annually on a global scale as a result of suicide, and those aged 15 to 29 are at a higher risk. (World Health Organization, 2012). An attitude is "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor." (Eagly & Chaikan, 1993, pp. 1). If a person’s attitude corresponds very closely to their predicted behaviour and the attitude is strong, then it is highly likely that their attitude would predict their future actions and behaviours (Myers et al., 2009, pp. 127). This concept plays an important role in suicide prediction as …show more content…
This method of behaviour prediction has been used extensively ever since, but it hasn’t been without scrutiny. Some argue that self-reports are not a one size fits all, leading some patients to feel uncomfortable sharing their intentions in order to avoid feeling stigmatized or even to avoid intervention. This subjective approach increases the chance of falsified responses, whilst the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is able to avoid this (Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2007). Busch, Fawcett, & Jacobs (2003) found that 78% of deceased suicide patients did not disclose their intentions in their last interaction with hospital staff, indicating that self-reports may not be the best predictor of something that can be very easily hidden to the outside world. As psychology has evolved, so have the attitudinal measurement techniques. One recent tool is the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), which relies more on the speed of word associations on topics measured rather than subjective feedback. Although the IAT is capable of providing introspection into the minds of participants, it is no way a lie detector tool although it may seem so on some levels; and what it picks up that self-reports lack to are associations that participants themselves are not aware of (Nosek et al.,
With Implicit Measures of Attitude?
The World Health Organization has calculated that over 800,000 people die annually on a global scale as a result of suicide, and those aged 15 to 29 are at a higher risk. (World Health Organization, 2012). An attitude is "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor." (Eagly & Chaikan, 1993, pp. 1). If a person’s attitude corresponds very closely to their predicted behaviour and the attitude is strong, then it is highly likely that their attitude would predict their future actions and behaviours (Myers et al., 2009, pp. 127). This concept plays an important role in suicide prediction as …show more content…
This method of behaviour prediction has been used extensively ever since, but it hasn’t been without scrutiny. Some argue that self-reports are not a one size fits all, leading some patients to feel uncomfortable sharing their intentions in order to avoid feeling stigmatized or even to avoid intervention. This subjective approach increases the chance of falsified responses, whilst the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is able to avoid this (Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2007). Busch, Fawcett, & Jacobs (2003) found that 78% of deceased suicide patients did not disclose their intentions in their last interaction with hospital staff, indicating that self-reports may not be the best predictor of something that can be very easily hidden to the outside world. As psychology has evolved, so have the attitudinal measurement techniques. One recent tool is the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), which relies more on the speed of word associations on topics measured rather than subjective feedback. Although the IAT is capable of providing introspection into the minds of participants, it is no way a lie detector tool although it may seem so on some levels; and what it picks up that self-reports lack to are associations that participants themselves are not aware of (Nosek et al.,