The current study examined the malleability of implicit attitudes using the Implicit
Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP). In Experiment 1, “similar” and
“opposite” were presented as response options with the sample terms “old people”
and “young people” and various positive and negative target stimuli. Results
showed significantly faster response latencies for consistent (e.g., Similar-
Positive-Young People) compared to inconsistent tasks (e.g., Similar-Positive-Old
People). Explicit measures did not correlate with this IRAP effect. Experiment 2
determined whether prior exposure to pictures of admired and disliked old and
young individuals had an impact on IRAP performance. Results revealed that
pro-old exemplars reduced the pro-young IRAP effect, but reversed the anti-old
effect, and this held for 24 h; explicit measures were largely unaffected. The
findings suggest that the IRAP provides an informative measure of attitudechange
following pro- versus anti-exemplar training
