Understanding the individual implicitly and explicitly

Abstract

The possibility that behaviour is shaped by cognitions outside of conscious awareness or control is a long‐standing feature of psychological theory. Empirical support for this theoretical stance is accelerating with the advent of methodological innovations for assessing implicit cognition. The articles in this Special Section provide evidence for the construct and predictive validity of implicit measures, especially the Implicit Association Test, and illustrate the value of implicit constructs for personality theory. This commentary briefly discusses each article, and notes that discrepancies between implicit and explicit responses can take multiple forms, each with distinct implications for understanding the individual.

La possibilité que le comportement soit formé par des cognitions inconscientes ou hors contrôle est véhiculée par la théorie psychologique depuis longtemps. Le soutien empirique pour cette position théorique prend de l'envergure grâce aux innovations méthodologiques permettant d'évaluer la cognition implicite. Les articles de cette section spéciale offrent des appuis à la validité de construit et à la validité prédictive des mesures implicites, notamment le Test d'association implicite, et illustrent la valeur des construits implicites pour la théorie de la personnalité. Ce texte discute brièvement de chaque article et constate que les contradictions entre les réponses implicites et explicites peuvent prendre plusieurs formes, chacune ayant des implications distinctes pour la compréhension de l'individu.

La posibilidad de que la conducta sea modelada a través de cogniciones fuera del campo de la conciencia o del control es un postulado antiguo en la teoría psicológica. El desarrollo de metodologías innovadoras en el campo de la evaluación de cogniciones implícitas ha permitido un incremento del soporte empírico de este postulado teórico. En esta edición especial, brinda el presente artículo evidencia respecto de la validez de constructo y de la validez predictiva de mediciones implícitas, especialmente del Test de Asociación Implícita (Implicit Association Test), e ilustra el valor de los constructos implícitos en la teoría de personalidad. En este artículo se discutirán brevemente los estudios de la presente sección, poniendo énfasis en como las discrepancias entre respuestas implícitas y explícitas pueden tomar diferentes formas, cada una de ellas con distintas implicaciones respecto de la comprensión del individuo.

Notes

1. I resist the term “dissociation” here because it is usually tied to a particular form of (non) relation between measures or responses. “Discrepancy” is meant to be inclusive of any construct‐relevant variation that is not shared between implicit and explicit measures.

2. This line would (a) cross through the origin if the assumption of rational zero‐points (no relative preference) is valid for both measures, (b) be monotonically increasing if the assumption that increasing values on one scale coincided with increasing values on the other scale, and (c) be linear if the metric of one scale was a linear function of the other. Items (a) and (b) are plausible (Greenwald, Nosek, & Sriram, 2006), and (c) requires more investigation.

3. Another approach is to estimate the mean discrepancy by calculating an effect size (Cohen’s d) for the implicit and explicit measures and correlate the absolute value of the effect size difference with the implicit–explicit correlation. This requires assumptions about the measures having similar sensitivity and reliability for making direct comparisons between d estimates. Calculated this way, the correlation was –.46, suggesting that larger mean implicit–explicit discrepancies are associated with weaker implicit–explicit correlations, but that these forms of discrepancy are not redundant (21% shared variance).