Using the Implicit Association Test to Assess Children's Implicit Attitudes toward Smoking.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Public Health
• Child Development

Background:

• Implicit attitudes toward smoking in children are not well understood.
• Existing measures may not accurately capture young children's attitudes.
• Tobacco prevention programs need valid tools to assess attitudes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an Implicit Association Test (IAT) for measuring implicit attitudes toward smoking in fifth graders.
• To examine the psychometric properties of the smoking IAT.
• To assess factors influencing implicit attitudes toward smoking in children.

Main Methods:

• Development of a novel Implicit Association Test (IAT) for children.
• Comparison of two IAT contrast categories: "sweets" and "healthy foods".
• Correlational analysis with explicit attitude measures and group comparisons based on family smoking status and sensation-seeking levels.

Main Results:

• The "sweets" contrast category IAT showed higher correlations with explicit attitudes.
• Children with smoking family members and high sensation-seeking children had more favorable implicit attitudes toward smoking.
• Tobacco prevention activities targeting addiction risk perception led to less favorable implicit attitudes.

Conclusions:

• The developed IAT is a reliable and valid measure of implicit attitudes toward smoking in children.
• The IAT can identify children at higher risk due to environmental or personality factors.
• The IAT demonstrates potential for evaluating the effectiveness of tobacco prevention interventions.