Background Issues 355Implicit Versus Explicit AttitudesAlthough most research on attitudes concerns people’s explicit
likes and dislikes, in recent years a good deal of research inter-
est has been generated by the idea of implicit attitudes. In an
influential review of implicit attitude effects, Greenwald and
Banaji (1995) referred to implicit attitudes as “introspectively
unidentified (or inaccurately identified) traces of past experi-
ence that mediate favorable or unfavorable feeling, thought, or
action toward social objects” (p. 8). This definition suggests
that people are unaware of some past experiences (implicit at-
titudes) that mediate current responses. Wilson, Lindsey, and
Schooler (2000) expanded this definition by suggesting that
implicit attitudes are “evaluations that (a) have an unknown
origin...(b)areactivated automatically; and (c) influence im-
plicit responses...”(p.104). This definition suggests that
people may be unaware of the origin of their past attitudes, al-
though they may be aware of the attitudes themselves. Green-
wald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998) stated that “implicit
attitudes are manifest as actions or judgments that are under
the control of automatically activated evaluation without the
performer’s awareness of that causation” (p. 1464). This defi-
nition suggests that people are unaware of the effects of im-
plicit attitudes. The implicit attitudes construct has been
applied to a growing body of research and can have important
implications for how researchers conceptualize attitude
change. Although the various definitions of implicit attitudes
have significant overlap, their application in practice is some-
times characterized by substantial ambiguity.
As the above definitions imply, one dimension on which
implicit attitudes are thought to differ from explicit attitudes
is awareness. That is, implicit attitudes are viewed as ones
for which people are unaware of what the attitude is, where
it comes from, or what effects it has. It is perhaps important
to note that these types of awareness are not mutually exclu-
sive. Any attitude can be characterized by all or none of
these types of awareness. We discuss each of these features
next.Awareness of the Attitude ItselfThe first type of awareness concerns an awareness of the
attitude itself—that is, does the person consciously acknowl-
edge that he or she holds an evaluative predisposition toward
some person, object, or issue? If so, the attitude is said to be
explicit.On the other hand, individuals sometimes have
stored evaluative associations of which they are unaware.
This type of awareness corresponds to the meaning of im-
plicitas employed in other psychological research domains.For example, in many demonstrations of implicit memory, an
individual shows evidence of having memorized a piece of
information, yet is unable to consciously retrieve the infor-
mation when desired (see Schacter, 1987, for a review). Sim-
ilarly, evidence for implicit learning is found when an
individual acquires some knowledge or skill that is evidenced
on task performance, but the individual is unable to verbalize
the underlying rule or basis for the skill (see Seger, 1994, for
a review). Thus, according to this criterion, to the extent that
people have evaluative predispositions of which they are not
consciously aware and are unable to consciously report when
asked, these attitudes are said to be implicit.Awareness of the Basis of the AttitudeAnother type of awareness mentioned in some discussions of
implicit attitudes concerns awareness of the basis of the atti-
tude. If people are not aware of the attitude itself, it is un-
likely that they would be aware of its basis (i.e., where it
comes from). However, people are often unaware of the basis
of their explicit attitudes as well. For example, repeated sub-
liminal exposures to a stimulus can increase liking of the
stimulus (Bornstein & D’Agostino, 1992) without aware-
ness. Although the individual can explicitly report his or her
preference for the previously seen stimulus, he or she has no
access to the source of the liking (i.e., the previous subliminal
exposures). Similarly, a consciously reported attitude (e.g.,
one’s life satisfaction) may be unknowingly biased by extra-
neous inputs (e.g., the good weather; Schwarz & Clore,
1983). Even if the source of an attitude seems quite explicit
(e.g., exposure to a persuasive message), people may be un-
aware that the message has influenced their attitudes. People
sometimes recall having had their new attitude all along
(Ross & McFarland, 1988). People can also think that their
attitudes have changed when they have not.
Thus, using awareness of an attitude’s basis or source as a
defining criterion for implicit attitudes is problematic in part
because individuals rarely (if ever) have complete access
to all of the influences on their judgments (see Nisbett &
Wilson, 1977; Wilson & Hodges, 1992). Therefore we do not
think that this criterion is a useful one for distinguishing im-
plicit from explicit attitudes. Stated simply, if an attitude is
implicit, the basis may be unknown—but not knowing the
basis of an attitude does not make it implicit.Awareness of the Attitude’s InfluenceA third type of awareness concerns awareness of the extent of
an attitude’s influence on other judgments and behaviors. Formill_ch15.qxd 10/1/02 10:04 AM Page 355