PSY1055 Advanced Psychology Research Skills Continuous Assessment 3 2026 | DCU

PSY1055 Continuous Assessment 3

MODULE: PSY1055 – Advanced Psychology Research Skills

COURSE: MSc in Psychology (Conversion)

YEAR: 2025-2026

EXAMINERS: Dr. Ciara Mahon, Dr. Gerry Molloy

SUBMISSION COMPONENTS:  Report 18.75%

TOTAL MARKS AVAILABLE:  18.75% of module grade

SUBMISSION DATES: Report DUE DATE 27^th February 2026 5pm

INSTRUCTIONS

1. The word limit for this assignment is 2,500 words (excluding abstract, footnotes, appendices and references). You must insert a word count. Students who greatly exceed this limit (by more than 250 words) will not be given credit for the excess words, and will be penalised by losing 10% off the total mark.
2. This assignment accounts for 18.75% of the final mark in this module.
3. The assignment must be typed using one and a half spacing with a font size of 12 Times New Roman.
4. The assignment must be submitted via Loop along with an anti-plagiarism declaration form on or before Submission Deadline (Date: 27^th Feb 2026 at 5pm). An assignment folder is provided in Loop for the purposes of this submission.
5. Plagiarism (any published works) will lead to an automatic fail and/or other penalties as outlined in the DCU student handbook.
6. Students should refer to APA guidelines on writing reports in Psychology.

REPORT: Implicit Attitudes to Race (Social Cognitive Psychology)     

You are required to read carefully the report guidelines for the study (see below). Of note, for this study, you will not be required to collect data as data will be provided to you for analysis purposes. These data are taken from the openly available RACE IAT dataset, but they have been modified for ease of interpretation and should not be distributed further.

In this assignment, you will examine implicit attitudes to race using a standard Race Implicit Association Test (IAT) with 7 blocks (Nosek, Greenwald & Banaji, 2005). You will prepare a full APA-style psychology report with your findings. You are required to conduct a brief literature review, develop a research question, analyse the data using basic descriptive analyses and standard multiple regression analyses and interpret and discuss your findings.

This project will assess your ability to appropriately analyse raw quantitative data to (a) test multivariate assumptions and (b) carry out a standard multiple regression, and your ability to interpret and write up a quantitative report.

An introduction to this research topic is provided in the Background section below. Essential reading for this report (pdf copies) will be made available on Loop. These papers are copyrighted, so please do not distribute. Full-text copies of all other cited references are available online.

The following breakdown provides an indication of how available word count could be used across the different sections of the report. It is not prescriptive.

Abstract          150 words

Introduction    800 words

Method           400 words

Results            350 words

Discussion       800 words

Appendices     No word limit

Background

Dual-model theories of cognition propose two cognitive processing systems: an explicit slow and controlled system and an implicit automatic, fast and associative system (Houben & Wiers, 2007). Traditionally people’s attitudes and preferences have been deemed to be under conscious control and have been measured using explicit measures such as the questionnaire (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Explicit self-report measures such as a questionnaire or a poll can be subject to a number of effects such as social desirability bias, interview bias and conscious social conformity (Burdein et al., 2006). Social desirability is when a participant provides “desirable” answers on attitudinal questionnaires in order to put forward a more socially acceptable image rather than how they truly feel or behave (Haghighat, 2007). Sensitive topics such as prejudice and discrimination (e.g. racism; Krysan, 1998) can be distorted by the social desirability bias, yielding inaccurate results when measured explicitly.

Implicit social cognitive models suggest that individuals have implicit associations that they are unaware of that influence assessment of others based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age and appearance. These implicit biases refer to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions and decisions in an unconscious manner (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). These biases may result in both favourable and unfavourable assessments, but they are activated without an individuals’ awareness and are therefore not accessible through traditional measurement approaches (e.g. via introspection).

In some cases, explicit and implicit beliefs align with one another, but in other instances implicit beliefs can be stronger than, or even in conflict with explicit beliefs (Nosek, Banaji & Greenwald, 2002). For example, with regards to age, young respondents tend to report more explicit, racial preferences for their in-group ‘younger people’ as well as more implicit favourable attitudes towards ‘younger people’. However, for older people, although they may report more explicit, in-group preferences for ‘older people’, they tend to report less favourable implicit attitudes towards ‘older people’, which may reflect broader cultural biases that hold negative views of this cohort (Nosek, Banaji & Greenwald, 2002).

Implicit biases are thought to be influenced by cultural norms, social hierarchies and political and religious ideologies (Nosek, Banaji & Greenwald, 2002; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). In this assignment you will examine how racial preference (i.e., an individual’s liking of one racial group compared to another) and political ideation (i.e., an individual’s political views along the liberal-conservative spectrum) may influence implicit racial bias as measured using an implicit association test (IAT).

The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

The IAT (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998) is the most commonly used experimental test within social psychology to measure the strength of a person’s automatic association between mental representations of objects or concepts in memory. Participants alternate between two categorisation tasks involving four target categories (e.g. flowers vs. insects; pleasant vs. unpleasant), but respond using only two response keys. The idea behind the task is that responses will be facilitated (faster and with less errors) if cognitively associated categories share a response key (Xu, Nosek & Greenwald, 2014). For example, when responding to pleasant words and flower images with one key, and unpleasant words and insect images with the other key, responding will generally be faster and participants will make less errors in comparison to responses made when the participants are presented with the opposite pairings (e.g. flower and unpleasant vs. insect and pleasant). The output of the IAT is a standardised D (difference) score. The IAT is now the most well validated measure of implicit attitudes (Nosek, Greenwald & Banaji, 2007) and the Race IAT (Black vs. White people; Good vs. Bad) is the most widely used variant of the test. The Race Implicit Association Test (IAT) is interpreted using the D-score, which reflects the relative strength of automatic associations between racial categories and evaluative attributes (Greenwald et al., 2003; Nosek et al., 2005). This is interpreted as follows:

• Positive D-scores: Faster responses for White + Good / Black + Bad, reflects implicit pro-White (anti-Black) bias.
• Negative D-scores: Faster responses for Black + Good / White + Bad, reflects implicit pro-Black bias.
• Scores around zero: Little or no detectable implicit preference.

Complete a RACE Implicit Association Test (IAT)

For learning purposes and to gain insight into how the implicit bias tests work, you can choose to complete the standard Race IAT at the Project Implicit (PI) IAT demonstration website. Go to the Project Implicit web page: https://implicit.harvard.edu. There is no need to log in. On the home page, click on ‘Project Implicit Social Attitudes’.  Read the preliminary information and click ‘I wish to proceed’. Scroll down through the list of tests and select RACE IAT. Note: On the test, it will ask you to confirm that you are aged 18+ years by asking you to report month and year of birth. After this, there are a series of optional questions related to attitudes, beliefs and demographic characteristics. You can opt to ‘decline to answer’ these questions, by selecting the box on the bottom right of the screen. You can follow the on-screen instructions to complete the test.

The Race IAT Report

For this assignment, you are required to follow the report guidelines provided in the relevant practical/Loop content. You will be given a subset of the PI Race IAT data set containing the Overall IAT D score and self-reported measures of racial preference and political ideation for each participant. You will examine the relationship between these variables and determine the extent to which racial preference and/or political ideation predicts implicit bias as measured by the Overall IAT D score.

References

Burdein, I., Lodge, M., & Taber, C. (2006). Experiments on the Automaticity of Political Beliefs and Attitudes. Political Psychology, 27(3), 359–371. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00504.x

Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4–27. http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.1.4

Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E. & Schwartz, J. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: the implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464-1480, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464

Haghighat, R. (2007). The Development of the Brief Social Desirability Scale (BSDS). Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 3(4). http://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v3i4.417

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2007). Personalizing the alcohol-IAT with individualized stimuli: Relationship with drinking behavior and drinking-related problems. Addictive Behaviors, 32(12), 2852–2864. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2007.04.022

Krysan, M. (1998). Privacy and the Expression of White Racial Attitudes: A Comparison Across Three Contexts. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 62(4), 506–544

Noesk, B. A., Greenwald, A. G. & Banaji, M. R. (2005). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: II. Method variables and construct validity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 31(2), 166-180, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167204271418 

Noesk, B. A., Greenwald, A. G. & Banaji, M. R. (2007). The Implicit Association Test at Age 7: A Methodological and Conceptual Review. In Bargh, J. A. (Ed.) Social Psychology and the unconscious: The automaticity of higher mental processes. New York: Psychology Press, pp. 265-292.

Xu, K., Nosek, B. and Greenwald, A.G., 2014. Psychology data from the Race Implicit Association Test on the Project Implicit Demo website. Journal of Open Psychology Data, 2(1), p.e3. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jopd.ac

REPORT 3 ASSIGNMENT

Literature Review

You are required to conduct a brief literature review that extends beyond the key readings given in the background section above. In addition to examining the literature relating to the development and use of the IAT measure, literature examining prejudice in general and racial prejudice in particular should also be considered. As should literature that explores the links between racial preference, political ideation and racial discrimination.

Research Hypotheses

You are also required to develop a research question and research hypotheses, and state these clearly at the end of the Introduction section of this report. Your hypotheses should make the following predictions:

H₁: It is predicted that racial preference and political ideation can be used to predict implicit race bias as measured by the RACE-IAT.

Study Methodology and Sample

Design: Clearly identify the study design and list the IVs and DVs measured.

Participants: Use the data set to determine the characteristics of the participants. Assume that participation was voluntary. No other details are required.

Materials: Use the details provided in this guide and in the accompanying source articles to describe the measures used. Concise scoring instructions should be provided for 1.) the RACE-IAT measure which is a measure of implicit race bias, 2.) the Thermology African Americans, which is a ‘feeling thermometer’ measure commonly used to assess explicit racial attitudes/preferences toward African Americans, and 3.) the Political Ideation measure which is a measure to assess political beliefs and ideology. The Thermology African Americans measure, and Political Ideation measure are often used in national survey research (e.g., ANES; American National Election Studies).

Procedure: For the purposes of this report, assume testing took place in DCU. The RACE-IAT was completed using the experiment publicly available on the Project Implicit website. Other measures were completed by hand and subsequently scored by researchers. No other details are required.

SPSS Data File

For the purposes of this project, and given the time and ethical limitations, you will be provided with the raw data in a data file (PSY1055_Report3_RACE_Data.sav on Loop). These data have been adapted from the publicly available Project Implicit RACE IAT dataset for the purposes of this assignment. They should not be distributed.

Data Analysis

You are required to analyse the raw data in SPSS.

1. Basic Descriptive Statistics

Describe the full sample in terms of gender (ratio), age (M, SD), RACE IAT Scores (M, SDs), racial preference scores (M, SD) and political ideation scores (M, SD).

Use tables and/or bar charts as appropriate.

2. Multivariate Statistics – Predicting RACE-IAT scores

Build a standard multiple regression model that uses racial preference and political ideation to predict RACE-IAT scores.

Remember to examine relevant multivariate assumptions and report on your findings prior to conducting and reporting the standard multiple regression analysis.

Discussion and Interpretation

Here, you should summarise your main findings (in text rather than mathematically) and then go on to interpret and discuss the results in light of previous studies. This section of the report should also aim to highlight study strengths and limitations and comment on the overall implications of your findings.

References

Include references for all cited sources.

PSY1055_CA3_Overview (3) (3).pptx

1. PSY1055_CA3 Report_RACE_Data (3).sav

REVISED_LECTURE_Wk3_Multiple Regression (1).pptx

REVISED_PRACTICAL_Wk3_Multiple Regression.pptx

Marking rubric

Grade Bands

Assessment Rubric