Explicit Self-concept Research Articles

Mutual influences between the implicit and explicit self-concepts: The role of memory activation and motivated reasoning

Whereas previous research has predominantly focused on dissociations between the explicit and implicit self-concepts, the current research investigates how these aspects of self-representation come into correspondence through the activation of information about the self in memory. Experiment 1 provides evidence for a “bottom-up” process of self-construal in which information activated in the implicit self-concept produces congruent changes in the explicit self-concept. Experiment 2 provides evidence for a “top-down” process of self-construal in which the motivated assertion of a propositional belief in the explicit self-concept leads, via a process of confirmatory hypothesis testing, to the activation of substantiating information in the implicit self-concept. These two processes of self-concept change are integrated within a framework that specifies how the explicit and implicit self-concepts are related within an overall, dynamic self-system. Possibilities for expanding the framework to account for self-concept dissociations are discussed.

Automatic brain response to facial emotion as a function of implicitly and explicitly measured extraversion

Extraversion/introversion is a basic dimension of personality that describes individual differences in social behavior and sensory sensitivity. Previous neuroimaging research exclusively relied on self reports for assessing personality traits. In recent years, implicit measures of personality have been developed that aim at assessing the implicit self-concept of personality and complement self report instruments which are thought to measure aspects of the explicit self-concept of personality. In the present study functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine automatic brain reactivity to facial expression as a function of both implicitly and explicitly measured extraversion in 30 healthy women. Sad, happy, and neutral faces were presented for 33 ms masked by neutral faces beside a no face control condition. Subjects evaluated the briefly shown neutral mask faces. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) were applied as measures of extraversion which were not correlated in our sample. IAT extraversion was negatively correlated with automatic reactivity of the caudate head, thalamus, and inferior frontal cortex to sad faces. NEO-FFI extraversion was negatively correlated with response of the inferior frontal cortex and putamen to sad faces. For masked happy faces, an inverse correlation of the IAT effect for extraversion with activation of the caudate head and superior parietal lobule was observed. NEO-FFI extraversion was inversely correlated with the response of the thalamus to happy faces. Neither NEO-FFI extraversion nor IAT effect were significantly related to brain response to masked neutral faces (compared to the no face condition). Taken together, a specific heightened responsivity of the fronto-striatal-thalamic circuit to facial emotions which are arousing stimuli might underlie introverts' preference for avoiding social interactions. Research on the neurobiology of extraversion could benefit from the application of implicit in addition to explicit measurement instruments when automatic neural responses are investigated.

Examining the Dynamics of the Implicit and the Explicit Self-Concept in Social Anxiety: Changes in the Implicit Association Test–Anxiety and the Social Phobia Anxiety Inventory Following Treatment

In this study, we analyzed changes in the strength of self-anxiety associations—as measured by the Implicit Association Test–Anxiety (IAT–Anxiety; Egloff & Schmukle, 2002) and the Social Phobia Anxiety Inventory (SPAI; Turner, Beidel, Dancu, & Stanley, 1989)—following treatment of social anxiety. We assessed socially anxious participants (N = 24) prior to and following a group-based treatment; and we assessed healthy controls (N = 24) at matched time points. Results showed (a) higher implicit and explicit anxiety in socially anxious participants (as compared to controls) prior to treatment and (b) reductions in IAT–Anxiety and SPAI scores of socially anxious participants following treatment. We discuss implications of these results for clinical applications of the IAT.

Second to fourth digit ratios and the implicit gender self-concept

Intersexual and intrasexual variation in the ratio of index and ring finger lengths (2D:4D) is thought to be a marker of fetal androgen and estrogen levels. Thus, 2D:4D ratios have been expected to be associated with the development of the gender self-concept (masculinity vs. femininity). These associations have, however, proven to be empirically rather small and lower than expected. By arguing that early developmental events more greatly influence implicit as compared with explicit self-concepts, we hypothesized that 2D:4D ratios might be associated with the implicit gender self-concept – assessed using an Implicit Association Test – as opposed to the self-reported explicit gender self-concept. Results showed that the implicit gender self-concept indeed significantly correlated with 2D:4D ratios for men, whereas these measures were dissociated for women. In contrast and as expected, we found only small correlations between 2D:4D ratios and the explicit gender self-concept for both sexes.

College education and motherhood as components of self-concept: Discrepancies between implicit and explicit assessments

Three studies examined the explicit and implicit self-concepts of college women. Participants completed self-report measures and implicit association tests measuring identification with the concepts “college education” and “motherhood.” Explicitly, participants identified more with college education than with motherhood. Implicitly, however, participants identified more with motherhood than with college education. The dissociation between mean levels of explicit and implicit identifications was more pronounced for students without children than for mothers (Study 2). In line with principles of affective – cognitive consistencies, the more motherhood was linked to the self, the stronger the correlation between attitude toward motherhood and self-esteem (Study 3). The findings show a clear discrepancy between explicit and implicit self-knowledge and reveal that motherhood plays a more important role in the self-concept of undergraduate women than self-reports would suggest.

Implicit Association Test: Separating Transsituationally Stable and Variable Components of Attitudes toward Gay Men

Implicit Association Test: Separating Transsituationally Stable and Variable Components of Attitudes toward Gay Men

Double dissociation between implicit and explicit personality self-concept: The case of shy behavior.

Double dissociation between implicit and explicit personality self-concept: The case of shy behavior.

Two Roads to Positive Regard: Implicit and Explicit Self-Evaluation and Culture

Three studies examined the implicit (nonconscious) and explicit (conscious) self-concepts of people who varied in their degree of exposure to individualistic cultures. Studies 1 and 2 compared the implicit and explicit self-concepts of recent Asian immigrants with those of European Americans and Asian Americans reared in the United States. Implicit measures revealed clear differences in the self-evaluations of the three groups, and these differences were generally consistent with recent analyses of culture and the self-concept. In contrast, explicit measures revealed that all three groups possessed positively valenced, individualistic self-concepts. Additionally, there was evidence that the implicit self-evaluations of the recent immigrants were becoming increasingly individualistic over time. Study 3 examined the implicit and explicit self-concepts of Japanese students who either had or had not lived abroad in the United States or Canada. For both the implicit and the explicit measures, the findings were conceptually similar to those of Studies 1 and 2. Implications for the nature of self-representations and the need for positive regard are discussed.

Self-discrepancies and persecutory delusions: evidence for a model of paranoid ideation.

The self-discrepancies of paranoid patients, depressed patients, and nonpatients were examined using a modified version of Higgins's Selves Questionnaire (E. T. Higgins, 1987). Nonpatients showed high consistencies between all domains of the self-concept, whereas depressed patients showed marked self-discrepancies. Paranoid patients alone displayed a high degree of consistency between self-perceptions and self-guides together with discrepancies between self-perceptions and the believed perceptions of parents about the self. Paranoid patients also believed that their parents had more negative views of them than did other participants. These findings are consistent with R. P. Bentall, P. Kinderman, and S. Kaney's (1994) model, which assumes that persecutory delusions are a product of attributional processes serving to maintain a positive explicit self-concept.