Temporal Stability of the Implicit Association Test–Anxiety

The Implicit Association Test–Anxiety (IAT–Anxiety; Egloff & Schmukle, 2002) provides an indirect assessment of anxiety by measuring associations of self (vs. other) with anxiety-related (vs. calmness-related) words. In 3 studies (using 3 independent samples), we examined the temporal stability of the IAT–Anxiety. In Study 1, 65 participants responded twice to the IAT–Anxiety with a time lag of 1 week. The test–retest correlation was .58. In Study 2 (N = 39), we extended the time interval between test and retest to 1 month and this yielded a stability coefficient of .62. In Study 3 (N = 36), we examined the long-term stability (time lag: 1 year) of the IAT–Anxiety and this showed a correlation of .47.We discuss implications of these results for the assessment of personality dispositions with the IAT.