Developmental Sources of Implicit Attitudes

Abstract

Explanations for implicit and explicit attitude dissociation have largely focused on causes of explicit attitudes. By contrast, this article examines developmental experiences as potential sources of implicit (more than explicit) attitudes, using attitudes toward smoking and body weight, which have shown dissociation with self-reports. In Study 1, smokers' implicit and explicit attitudes toward smoking were uniquely predicted by their early and recent experiences with smoking, respectively. In Study 2, participants' childhood and current weight uniquely predicted implicit and explicit body weight attitudes, respectively. Furthermore, being raised primarily by a beloved, heavyweight mother predicted proheavy implicit (but not explicit) attitudes. In Study 3, people's reports of pleasant dreams in childhood (but not currently) predicted their implicit attitudes toward dreams. In concert, results provide support for theorizing that implicit and explicit attitudes may stem from different sources of information and are, therefore, conceptually distinct.

On the determinants of implicit evaluations: When the present weighs more than the past

“…Counter to earlier findings showing stronger relations between implicit evaluations and early experiences (e.g., Rudman et al, 2007), participants' reports of recent experiences, present behaviors, and current selfconcept relevance predicted both implicit and explicit evaluations even after controlling for early experiences, past behaviors, and past self-concept relevance.…”

“…2 The validity of this An open question is why the current results deviate from earlier findings, in which implicit evaluations typically showed stronger relations to early rather than recent experiences (e.g., Rudman et al, 2007). From a critical point of view, one could argue that religion represents an exceptional case, given that religious behaviors during childhood are often determined by external pressures from parents rather than personal attitudes.…”

“…Rudman et al (2007) argued that the stronger relation of implicit evaluations to early experiences may be due to the fact that early experiences tend to be more affective. Thus, more recently acquired, cognitive information may be unable to override the affective associations created by early experiences, thereby leading to a dissociation between implicit and explicit evaluations.…”

“…For this reason, we additionally asked participants' parents to report their perceptions of the importance of religion for their sons/daughters both in the present and when they were children. To the degree that previous findings are due to the proposed overlap between early versus recent experiences with affective versus cognitive experiences (Rudman et al, 2007), controlling for affectivity may produce a different pattern of results, such that both implicit and explicit evaluations may show stronger relations to recent as compared early experiences.…”

“…Instead, temporal distance may function as a distal factor that gains its impact through the differential effectiveness of affective versus cognitive experiences in shaping implicit and explicit evaluations (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2007). For example, one could argue that childhood experiences with smoking are often more affective, whereas later acquired knowledge about smoking is usually more cognitive (Rudman et al, 2007).…”