Lalor, Isabella (2019) Developing an Empirically Valid Function Acquisition Speed Test for Assessing Attitudes to and Predicting Real-world Behaviour. Masters thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
The current research was designed to validate a newly developed Function
Acquisition Speed Test (FAST; O’Reilly et al., 2012) developed to measure attitudes to
abortion among the general population, and to retrospectively predict a real-world behaviour
in relation to voting for or against the availability of abortion services, in a national
referendum. Participants, consisting of those with openly expressed pro-life or pro-choice
attitudes, were exposed to an Implicit Association Test (IAT), a FAST procedure, an explicit
attitudes to abortion questionnaire, and a demographic survey. This procedure allowed for a
comparison of FAST and IAT outcomes, inter-correlations between the explicit and implicit
measures, as well as the predictive validity of the implicit measures of referendum voting
behaviour and self-reported group affiliation. The first aim of this research was to assess the
FAST’s utility in providing converging test results to predict both group affiliation and voting
behaviour in the 2018 referendum on the 8th amendment concerning the legalisation of
abortion. In seeking to validate the FAST, the gold standard IAT, as well as explicit test
measures (i.e., the Attitudes to Abortion Questionnaire and Demographic survey), were
administrated to assess convergent and predictive validity. The second aim of this research
was to meaningfully compare the two implicit test measures, by employing common data
scoring methods across the tests (i.e. using Rate-Fluency Differential or RFD scores, D scores
and slope differential scores). Results showed that the FAST predicted group affiliation and
voting behaviour satisfactorily. In particular, FAST RFD scores were found to be the optimal
scoring metric when predicting voting behaviour, whereas FAST slope scores were found to
be the optimal scoring metric when predicting group affiliation. Cut-off points were also
provided for both scoring metrics, contributing to the production of a meaningful scoring
system for the FAST. In terms of the implicit measures, the IAT D scores was found to have
the best overall predictive validity. However, neither test outperformed the almost perfectly
predictive explicit test score, regardless of the scoring metric used. Nevertheless, the FAST
offers a functional model of implicit attitudes that is wanting for the IAT, and additional
research is needed in sensitive contexts, in order to increase the FAST’s predictive validity up
to and beyond that of explicit measures. Several methodological and conceptual issues are
considered in an effort to accelerate fruitful research towards this end.
Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
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Keywords: | Empirically Valid Function Acquisition Speed Test; Assessing Attitudes; Predicting; Real-world; Behaviour; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology |
Item ID: | 13647 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 20 Nov 2020 11:17 |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/13647 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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