The IRAP as a Measure of Implicit Cognition: A Case of Frankenstein's Monster

The implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) was initially developed as a way to assess the strength and probability of natural verbal relations, as defined within relational frame theory (RFT), and was conceptually rooted within the behavior-analytic tradition. However, the IRAP quickly became employed primarily as a measure of implicit cognition, more in line with mainstream psychology than behavior analysis. In doing so, research using the IRAP increasingly employed ill-defined mainstream psychological terms, focused on correlational analyses with traditional psychometry, and thus emphasized prediction over the prediction-and-influence of behavior. Although perhaps beneficial to the study of implicit cognition, this approach could be argued to have limited the IRAP's utility in behavior analyses of human language and cognition. In the current article we will reflect on this suggestion, on the IRAPs place and current use in the field of behavior analysis, and on its potential future within behavioral psychology in light of recent conceptual and empirical advances in RFT. In doing so, it is hoped that the measure may be refined into a better understood, more precise, functional-analytic tool.