Synergistic Moderator Effects of Situation and Person Factors of Awareness and Adjustment on the Consistency of Implicit and Explicit Attitudes

Abstract

A moderated consistency model is presented, which attempts to explain the consistency between explicit and implicit indicators as a function of awareness and adjustment. In a study on attitudes of Germans toward Turks, we tested the hypothesis that functionally equivalent person and situation moderators pertaining to awareness and adjustment show a synergistic interplay. Concerning moderators of adjustment, no effects on explicit-implicit consistency were obtained for situational variables nor for the interaction of personal and situational variables. However, concerning moderators of awareness, a reliable first-order effect was found for Private Self-Consciousness. Moreover, Private Self-Consciousness and experimentally manipulated motivation to introspect showed the assumed synergistic interaction moderator effect. The empirical findings are discussed with regard to the role of awareness of implicit attitudes and the potentially underlying mechanisms of implicit-explicit consistency.