Measuring depression with the questionnaire based Implicit Association Test: a new tool to detect malingering

In the last decades many studies demonstrated that self-report measures are massively prone to malingering. To improve the detection of malingered depressive symptoms, we developed the depression questionnaire-based Implicit Association Test (qIAT). In study 1, a first version of the new tool was made on the basis of several BDI-II items and tested on a sample of 118 participants, 59 of them asked for faking depressive symptoms. The aim was to test psychometric properties (reliability, internal and convergent validity) of the new tool and its better-expected susceptibility to faking, compared with explicit measure. In study 2, we replicated study 1 using a more varied wording version of stimuli to control response biases. Results showed adequate internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha), for study 1 and 2, along with small/moderate correlations with self-report measures of depression, supporting their convergent validity. Moreover, in the second study the qIAT was significantly correlated with different theoretically linked criteria (i.e., self-esteem, satisfaction with life), supporting criterion validity of the new measure. Finally and most importantly, in both studies, the depression qIAT revealed a considerably lower vulnerability to faking compared to the BDI-II.