Faking the IAT: Aided and Unaided Response Control on the Implicit Association Tests

One pragmatic goal of implicit tools like the Implicit Association Tests (IAT) is to rule out self-presentation and controlled responding. Three experiments examined whether the IAT meets this goal, using Turkish and German groups along with positive and negative traits. Experiment 1 was an Internet study. After completing a naïve IAT pretest, participants were instructed to fake on a posttest in 3 graded conditions that differed in the explicitness of faking instructions. Experiment 2 replicated and extended the approach in the laboratory, including a no-pretest condition. Results demonstrate that participants who intended to fake were successful, provided the experience of a pretest. Experiment 3 ruled out an alternative account of faking in terms of pretest experience. Faking was mostly due to slow-down on compatible trials, but a notable speed-up on incompatible trials also occurred. Faking remained inconspicuous, especially with nonblatant instructions; experts failed to identify faked data sets.