This volume presents a manual for a new method of studying implicit attitudes the Test of
Implicit Associations in Relationship Attitudes (TIARA). The main goal of this volume is to
demonstrate how to study the implicit attitudes that people have toward others in their close
relationships: friend romantic partner family member etc. Since the inception of the concept
and measures of implicit cognition researchers have developed a number of indirect measures to
assess implicit attitudes. These similar yet different methods aim to account for different
variables for reliable and valid operational definitions of implicit attitudes. Given the
progress made in the field of implicit measures there is great potential for further
development and extension of these types of assessments. Many of these methods (especially the
Implicit Attitude Test) are only limited to assessing attitudes within the comparison of two
bipolar concepts. Therefore TIARA was developed to be a manual for a new method of studying
implicit attitudes in relationships. As described in this volume TIARA shows that if a person
strongly believes that certain feelings can be attributed to a target relationship figure the
reaction time is shorter since they are the most confident in their answer. Beginning with a
grounded explanation of the theory behind TIARA the volume then proceeds to explain its
methods and procedures and how to code score and interpret the results of TIARA. Next the
volume reports on six psychometric studies which provide substantial evidence that TIARA is a
valid and reliable measure to study implicit attitudes in relationship research. The volume
concludes by exploring practical applications of TIARA as well as its future directions and
current limitations. The detailed description of the TIARA method provides a practical and
handy tutorial for using the method in research and practice for social and personality
psychologists as well as practitioners.
