Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Cigarette Smoking: the Effects of Context and Motivation

Abstract

Two studies examined the effects of context and motivational state on two implicit measures of attitudes toward smoking (priming [Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1996] and the Implicit Association Test [IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998]) as well as on explicit attitudes among nonsmokers and smokers. The priming measure was sensitive to changes in the salience of different aspects of smoking and to changes in motivational state (nicotine deprivation). There were only modest relations between explicit and implicit attitudes, and the two implicit measures were generally uncorrelated. These results have implications for the complexity and ambivalence of attitudes toward smoking held by smokers and for interventions that seek to change their attitudes and smoking behavior.