Search

In recent years, emotion−related characteristics are hot research topics in the domains of psychology and brain science. Especially in brain science, it is underscored by some innovative hypotheses that unconscious functions of emotions that mostly consist of physiological body reactions play crucial roles in determining human judgements and behaviors. Nevertheless, the methods to measure judgements and behaviors along with various personality characteristics are in most cases self−report measures in which questions directly asking about target characteristics are answered through conscious thoughts regarding the characteristics. However, in recent years, an increasing number of studies have started to measure implicit characteristcts that are mostly preconscious. Also in emotion−related characteristics, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) to assess implicit affect in adults was developed by Quirin et al.(2009). The current study aimed to develop the IPANAT for children (IPANAT−C) based on the original adult version. After developing the first version of the test, it was administered to 106 elementary school children from the 4th to 6th grades. The first version has diffenent adjectives to measure affect from IPANAT and utilizes line drawings instead of nonsense artificial words in the adult verson. Furthermore, the children were given writing tasks to write sentences about themselves and their best friend for 15 minutes. The contents of the written sentences were analyzed by counting the words representing positive and negative emotions and affect, giving evidence on the construct validy for the IPANAT−C. Results showed that the test consists of two subscales, positive and negative affect, but that the subscale for negative affect only has a low alpha coefficient whereas the one for positive affect has a high alpha coefficient suggesting high internal consisitency. In addition, the subscale of positive affect had a significantly positive association with the positive words in the written sentences in girls. Limitations are disscussed alongside future research to revise the test and examine more precisely the reliablity and validity.