Decomposing the Implicit Self–Concept: The Relative Influence of Semantic Meaning and Valence on Attribute Self–Association

Abstract

Although past research has repeatedly demonstrated that the implicit self–concept contains a wide variety of attributes, the underlying basis of these associations is less clear. Four studies assess the extent to which self–associations are premised on semantic meaning and valence. In each study, subjects generated self–descriptive attributes and then completed identity IATs that measured the relative strength of association between their self and different versions of the generated attributes. Subjects demonstrated stronger self–associations with their personally generated attributes than with (1) attributes that differed in semantic meaning but not valence (Experiments 1 and 2) and (2) attributes that differed in valence but not semantic meaning (Experiment 3). Finally, subjects exhibited stronger self–associations with attributes that shared semantic meaning (but not valence) with their generated attributes than with attributes that shared valence (but not meaning). These results suggest that although both valence and semantic meaning contribute to the strength of association between attributes and the self, semantic meaning is the primary basis of association in the implicit self–concept.