The Implicit Association Test

Among the general public and behavioral scientists alike, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the best known and most widely used tool for demonstrating implicit bias: the unintentional impact of social group information on behavior. More than forty million IATs have been completed at the Project Implicit research website. These public datasets are the most comprehensive documentation of IAT and self-reported bias scores in existence. In this essay, we describe the IAT procedure, summarize key findings using the IAT to document the pervasiveness and correlates of implicit bias, and discuss various ways to interpret IAT scores. We also highlight the most common uses of the IAT. Finally, we discuss unanswered questions and future directions for the IAT specifically, and implicit bias research more generally.