Implicit cognition and tax perceptions: Developing the single-target IAT for tax compliance research in Indonesia

Abstract

Tax compliance is a significant challenge in public finance. It is shaped not only by legal enforcement but also by taxpayers’ perceptions and cognitive evaluations. Traditional self-report methods are limited by social desirability bias and may fail to capture the automatic dimensions of tax attitudes. This study introduces and validates the Tax Single-Target Implicit Association Test (Tax ST-IAT), developed through three sequential studies in Indonesia (N = 302) to measure implicit cognitive representations of taxation. The findings showed that the Tax ST-IAT performed reliably, displaying stable latency patterns and high response accuracy. The findings also revealed an ambivalent pattern of implicit representations. Positive associations, including public welfare and development, coexisted with negative themes that remained easily accessible at the automatic level of cognition. Theoretically, the study advances dual-process perspectives by demonstrating how implicit and explicit tax evaluations may diverge. Practically, the findings suggest that policymakers may strengthen voluntary compliance by amplifying positive implicit associations while addressing persistent negative ones in public communication.