Sexism Go/No-Go Association Task - GNAT

Technical Manual

This script was made available to the Millisecond Test Library by Dr. Britzman.

Last Modified: January 07, 2024 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Go-Nogo Association Task (GNAT) to investigate implicit ambivalent sexism by Britzman & Mehić-Parker (in press).

Literature Reference:

Britzman, K.J & Mehić-Parker, J. (2023). Understanding Electability: The Effects of Implicit and Explicit Sexism on Candidate Perceptions. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. (in press)

Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2001). The go/no-go association task. Social Cognition, 19(6), 625-666.

Adjustments to z-scores as described by: Gregg, A. & Sedikides, C. (2010). Narcissistic Fragility: Rethinking Its Links to Explicit and Implicit Self-esteem, Self and Identity, 9:2, 142-161 (p.148)

Duration

10 minutes

Procedure

Default GNAT Set-Up in this script:
(1) 4 training blocks: one training block each for targetA (here: women), targetB (here: men), attributeA (here: occupations),
attributeB (here: qualities)
with response timeout of 600ms
-> block order is determined randomly
-> run 20 trials each (10 target:10 noise)

(2) 4 test blocks that combine targets and attributes with a response timeout (default: 600ms)
-> block order is determined randomly
-> each block runs 16 'practice trials' followed by 48 test trials (summary variables based on test trial performance only)
-> signal : noise = 1 : 1 (samenumber of attributeA, attributeB, signal and noise trials)
-> each attribute (12) is selected once during the test trials
-> each target is repeated 4x during the test trials

Stimuli

see section Editable Stimuli (stimuli from Gregg & Sedikides, 2010)

Instructions

see section Editable Instructions

Summary Data

File Name:

Data Fields

NameDescription
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
script.startDate Date script was run
script.startTime Time script was started
script.subjectId Assigned subject id number
script.groupId Assigned group id number
script.sessionId Assigned session id number
script.elapsedTime Time it took to run script (in ms); measured from onset to offset of script
script.completed 0 = script was not completed (prematurely aborted)
1 = script was completed (all conditions run)
parameters.responseTimeout1Signal Stores the response timeouts in ms used for signals in the testblocks in this script
parameters.responseTimeout1Noise Stores the response timeouts in ms used for noise in in the testblocks in this script
parameters.responseTimeout2Signal Stores the response timeouts in ms used for signals in the testblocks in this script
parameters.responseTimeout2Noise Stores the response timeouts in ms used for noise in in the testblocks in this script
parameters.responseTimeout3Signal Stores the response timeouts in ms used for signals in the testblocks in this script
parameters.responseTimeout3Noise Stores the response timeouts in ms used for noise in in the testblocks in this script
item.targetAlabel.item(1)the category used for target A
item.targetBlabel.item(1) The category used for target B
item.attributeAlabel.item(1) The category used for attribute A
item.attributeBlabel.item(1) The category used for attribute B
propCorrectAA Overall proportion correct for pairing targetA-attributeA; test trials only
propCorrectAB Overall proportion correct for pairing targetA-attributeB; test trials only
propCorrectBA Overall proportion correct for pairing targetB-attributeA; test trials only
propCorrectBB Overall proportion correct for pairing targetB-attributeB; test trials only
TARGET A Conditions
signals = women
AA Condition
signals = women OR occupation stims
noise = anything else (men OR qualities stims)
rHitAA Hit rate for pairing targetA-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
hit: pressing spacebar for signals (women OR occupation stims) in AA condition
rMissAA Miss rate for pairing targetA-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
miss: not pressing spacebar for signals (women OR occupation stims) in AA condition
rFaAA False alarm (FA) rate for pairing targetA-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
false alarm: pressing spacebar for noise stims (men OR qualities stims) in AA condition
rCrAA Correct rejection (CR) for pairing targetA-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
cr: not pressing spacebar for noise stims (men OR qualities stims) in AA condition
zHitAA Z-score of hit rate for pairings targetA-attributeA (here: women-occupation)
zFaAA Z-score of FA rate for pairings targetA-attributeA (here: women-occupation)
*Adjustments to z-scores as recommended by
Gregg, A. & Sedikides, C. (2010). Narcissistic Fragility
Rethinking Its Links to Explicit and Implicit Self-esteem, Self and Identity, 9:2, 142-161 (p.148)
=> Adjustments are made if the FArate (hitRate) = 0 (increased to 0.005) or 1 (decreased to 0.995)*
dPrimeAA Computes d' (parametric measure of discriminability btw. signals and noise) for 'women-occupation' Pairings
=> Range (in this script)
-5.1516586840152740479 <= dprime <= 5.1516586840152740479 (=perfect performance)
=> The higher the value, the better signals (go stims) were distinguished from noise (nogo stims)
(d' = 0: chance performance; negative d-primes: participant treated nontargets as targets and targets as nontargets)
cAA C-criterion in signal detection:The absolute value of c provides an indication of the strength of
the response bias/response style
negative: participant more likely to report that signal (go stims) is present (liberal response style)
may favor faster responding in speed-accuracy trade-off response paradigms
positive: favoring caution (conservative response style)
AB Condition
signals = women OR qualities
noise = anything else (men OR occupation)
rHitAB Hit rate for pairing targetA-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
hit: pressing spacebar for signals (women OR qualities) in AA condition
rMissAB Miss rate for pairing targetA-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
miss: not pressing spacebar for signals (women OR qualities) in AA condition
rFaAB False alarm (FA) rate for pairing targetA-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
false alarm: pressing spacebar for noise stims (men OR occupation) in AA condition
rCrAB Correct rejection (CR) for pairing targetA-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
cr: not pressing spacebar for noise stims (men OR occupation) in AA condition
zHitAB Z-score of hit rate for pairings targetA-attributeB (here: women-qualities)
zFaAB Z-score of FA rate for pairings targetA-attributeB (here: women-qualities)
dPrimeAB Computes d' (parametric measure of discriminability btw. signals and noise) for 'women-qualities' Pairings
cAB C-criterion in AB condition
TARGET B Conditions
signals = men
BA Condition
signals = men OR occupation stims
noise = anything else (women OR qualities stims)
rHitBA Hit rate for pairing targetB-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
hit: pressing spacebar for signals (men OR occupation stims) in BA condition
rMissBA Miss rate for pairing targetB-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
miss: not pressing spacebar for signals (men OR occupation stims) in BA condition
rFaBA False alarm (FA) rate for pairing targetB-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
false alarm: pressing spacebar for noise stims (women OR qualities stims) in BA condition
rCrBA Correct rejection (CR) for pairing targetB-attributeA across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
cr: not pressing spacebar for noise stims (women OR qualities stims) in BA condition
zHitBA Z-score of hit rate for pairings targetB-attributeA (here: men-occupation)
zFaBA Z-score of FA rate for pairings targetB-attributeA (here: men-occupation)
dPrimeBA Computes d' (parametric measure of discriminability btw. signals and noise) for 'men-occupation' Pairings
cBA C-criterion in BA condition
AB Condition
signals = men OR qualities
noise = anything else (women OR occupation)
rHitBB Hit rate for pairing targetB-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
hit: pressing spacebar for signals (men OR qualities) in BA condition
rMissBB Miss rate for pairing targetB-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
miss: not pressing spacebar for signals (men OR qualities) in BA condition
rFaBB False alarm (FA) rate for pairing targetB-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
false alarm: pressing spacebar for noise stims (women OR occupation) in BA condition
rCrBB Correct rejection (CR) for pairing targetB-attributeB across all responsetimeouts; test trials only
cr: not pressing spacebar for noise stims (women OR occupation) in BA condition
zHitBB Z-score of hit rate for pairings targetB-attributeB (here: men-qualities)
zFaBB Z-score of FA rate for pairings targetB-attributeB (here: men-qualities)
dPrimeBB Computes d' (parametric measure of discriminability btw. signals and noise) for 'men-qualities' Pairings
cBB C-criterion in BB condition
overall
gnatpart1 (a) subtracting d' for the (BA) block from d' for the (AA) => AA-BA
=> if positive: participant is better at discriminating btw. signal and noise
when both 'woman' and 'occupations' are signals than when 'man' and 'occupations' are signals
This supports closer association of 'woman' and 'occupations' than 'man' and 'occupations'
gnatpart2 (b) subtracting d' for the (AB) block from d' for the (BB)=> BB-AB
=> if positive: participant is better at discriminating btw. signal and noise
when both 'men' and 'qualities' are signals than when 'woman' and 'qualities' are signals
This supports closer association of 'men' and 'qualities' than 'women' and 'qualities'
gnatall #A composite index of sexism
=> sum of GNATpart1 and GNATpart2
=> the higher the composite score, the closer a participant
associates women with occupation and men and qualities

Raw Data

File Name: implicitsexism_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
build Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
date, time, Date and time script was run
subject, group, With the current subject/groupnumber
script.sessionId With the current session id
blockCode Name of the current block
blockNum Number of the current block
trialCode Name of the current trial
trialNum Number of the current trial
phase "training" (single category categorization) vs. "test" (2 categories categorization)
item.targetAlabel.item(1)the category used for target A
item.targetBlabel.item(1) The category used for target B
item.attributeAlabel.item(1) The category used for attribute A
item.attributeBlabel.item(1) The category used for attribute B
responseTimeoutTarget Time in ms that is allowed for response in a signal trial
responseTimeoutNoise Time in ms that is allowed for response in a noise trial
signal 1 = signal trial (spacebar response is correct)
0 = noisetrial (no response is correct)
targetType "A" vs. "B"
pairing "AA" -> targetA-attributeA
"AB" -> targetA-attributeB
"BA" -> targetB-attributeA
"BB" -> targetB-attributeB
trialType Training phase:"training"
Test phase: "practice" vs. "test"
stimulusItem The presented stimulusitems in order of presentation in stimulusframes (see trials)
response Response made (either 57 = Spacebar or 0 for no response)
correct The accuracy of response (1 = correct; 0 = error)
latency The latency of the response in ms (or if no response: response timeout duration)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
responseTimeout1Signal Stores the longest response timeouts in ms used in this study for targets
by default, the longest response timeout in this script is used for blocks
that test attributes and targets separately (default: 1000ms)
responseTimeout2Signal
responseTimeout3Signal
(samefor noise trials: by default they are the same in this script)
isi Stores the interstimulus interval (time between offset of one stimulus and onset of next)