Publications

Journal Article

Accumulated evidence from social and cognitive psychology suggests that many behaviors are driven by processes operating outside of awareness, and an array of implicit measures to capture such processes have been developed.

Despite their potential application, implicit measures have received relatively modest attention within the organizational sciences, due in part to barriers to entry and uncertainty about appropriate use of available measures. The current article is intended to serve as an implicit measurement “toolkit” for organizational scholars, and as such our goals are fourfold.

First, the authors present theory critical to implicit measures, highlighting advantages of capturing implicit processes in organizational research. Second, the authors present a functional taxonomy of implicit measures (i.e., accessibility-based, association-based, and interpretation-based measures) and explicate assumptions and appropriate use of each.

Third, the authors discuss key criteria to help researchers identify specific implicit measures most appropriate for their own work, including a discussion of principles for the psychometric validation of implicit measures. Fourth, the authors conclude by identifying avenues for impactful “next-generation” research within the organizational sciences that would benefit from the use of implicit measures.