Discuss the logic behind the use of reaction time combined with word association as an indicator of hidden thoughts and feelings

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: Carl Jung, a colleague of Freud’s, first added the procedure of timing reactions to word association tests as a means of gathering more information. A word association test is fairly straightforward. A person is read a list of words, one at a time, and instructed to respond with whatever comes to mind as quickly as possible. The basic premise of this procedure is that a person will respond with what is on their mind, and if there are conflicts or unconscious associations the responses will be altered in some way. The subject might repeat the word, stammer, exhibit a slip of the tongue, etc. Jung hypothesized also that the more complex the associations or emotions attached to the word the slower the response would be. A modern computer-based technique, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), also uses this hypothesis. This test can, for example, show two stimuli such as a photo and a negative or positive word. It is assumed that if the picture has positive associations and a positive word is paired with it the processing time will be shorter than if the pairing is a positive picture with a negative word. From this information one can make hypotheses about the emotional importance or negative or positive association to a word or picture.