Music as an Unconditioned Stimulus: Positive and Negative Effects of Country Music on Implicit Attitudes, Explicit Attitudes, and Brand Choice1

Abstract

An experiment (N = 68) explored how background music in a realistic web advertisement could condition implicit and explicit attitudes toward a novel brand. Conditioning effects were apparent in both traditional explicit attitude measures and also in the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Further, brand choice was predicted by explicit attitudes, but prediction improved significantly when implicit attitudes were considered. Mood‐congruent judgment, demand effects, and conditioning are considered as potential explanations for our results, and we argue that conditioning provides the most parsimonious explanation. Finally, the results are discussed within the context of the associative‐propositional evaluation model (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). This model provides a framework for the integration of the implicit attitude construct into the study of consumer behavior.