Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure

The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) is a computer-based psychological measure. It was heavily influenced by the implicit-association test,^[1] and is one of several tasks referred to as indirect measures of implicit attitudes.^[2][3] The IRAP is one of relatively few indirect measures that can includes relational or propositional rather than associative information.^[4] The IRAP was conceptualised by Dermot Barnes-Holmes, and originally published in 2006.^[5] A meta analysis of clinically-relevant criterion effects suggest that the IRAP has good validity.^[6] However, a second meta analysis suggests that it has poor reliability, like many reaction time based measures.^[7] Research using the IRAP is often linked to relational frame theory,^[8] a functional-analytic theory of language.

Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure
Synonyms	IRAP
Purpose	measure of implicit attitude

Application and use

Procedure

A computer-based measure, the IRAP requires individuals to accurately and quickly respond to the relation between two stimuli presented on screen (e.g., to "dog" and "woof") using one of two response options (e.g., "similar" and "different"). Across pairs of blocks, individuals must respond using two contrasting response patterns, for example "dog-woof-similar" versus "dog-woof-different". Reaction times are then compared between these blocks. Any difference in response time between the two block types is defined as an IRAP effect. According to the creators, "the basic hypothesis is that average response latencies should be shorter across blocks of consistent relative to inconsistent trials. In other words, participants should respond more rapidly to relational tasks that reflect their current beliefs than to tasks that do not".^[1]

Implementations

The IRAP was first implemented in Visual Basic 6, and distributed for free for academic use but under a closed source by Dermot Barnes-Holmes. A multi-platform, open-source implementation written in PsychoPy is also available on the Open Science Framework.^[9]

See also

• Implicit association test

References

1. Barnes-Holmes, Dermot; Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne; Stewart, Ian; Boles, Shawn (2010). "A sketch of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) and the Relational Elaboration and Coherence (REC) model" (PDF). The Psychological Record. 60 (3): 527–542. doi:10.1007/BF03395726. S2CID 55621415.
2. Nosek, Brian A.; Hawkins, Carlee Beth; Frazier, Rebecca S. (2011). "Implicit social cognition: from measures to mechanisms". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 15 (4): 152–159. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.01.005. PMC 3073696. PMID 21376657.
3. De Houwer, Jan; Moors, Agnes (2010). "Implicit measures: similarities and differences". In Gawronski, Bertram; Payne, B. Keith (eds.). Handbook of implicit social cognition: measurement, theory, and applications. New York: Guilford Press. pp. 176–195. ISBN 9781606236734. OCLC 457010488.
4. De Houwer, Jan; Gawronski, Bertram (2014). "Implicit measures in social and personality psychology". In Reis, Harry T.; Judd, Charles M. (eds.). Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 283–310. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511996481.016. ISBN 9781107011779. OCLC 851347261.
5. Barnes-Holmes, Dermot; Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne; Power, Patricia; Hayden, Eilish; Milne, Rebecca; Stewart, Ian (2006). "Do you really know what you believe? Developing the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a direct measure of implicit beliefs". The Irish Psychologist. 32 (7): 169–177. Retrieved 2016-10-10.
6. Vahey, Nigel A.; Nicholson, Emma; Barnes-Holmes, Dermot (2015-09-01). "A meta-analysis of criterion effects for the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) in the clinical domain". Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. 48: 59–65. doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2015.01.004. ISSN 1873-7943. PMID 25727521.
7. Golijani-Moghaddam, Nima; Hart, Aidan; Dawson, David L. (2013-10-15). "The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure: Emerging reliability and validity data" (PDF). Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. 2 (3–4): 105–119. doi:10.1016/j.jcbs.2013.05.002.
8. Hussey, Ian; Barnes-Holmes, Dermot; Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne (2015-04-01). "From Relational Frame Theory to implicit attitudes and back again: clarifying the link between RFT and IRAP research". Current Opinion in Psychology. Third wave behavioral therapies. 2: 11–15. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2014.12.009. hdl:1854/LU-8547127.
9. Hussey, Ian (2016). "OSF | Open Source Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure". doi:10.17605/osf.io/kg2q8. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)