Implicit Self-concept Research Articles

Implicit self-concept and moral action

Explicit measures of moral personality are not very successful in predicting specific moral actions. Recent theoretical developments suggest that measures based on associative processes may provide an alternative to improve prediction. In this contribution we have developed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) measure of the Moral vs. Immoral self-concept and used it alongside a direct self-rating of moral personality. In Study 1 this IAT measure uniquely predicted whether participants faithfully reported an outcome implying negative consequences. In Study 2 the IAT moral self-concept predicted an actual moral behavior, while a self-rating explicit personality measure predicted responses to hypothetical moral scenarios. Results are discussed in light of the role played by individual differences in associative structures representing personality and the self-concept.

Implicit but Stable

This study investigates the malleability of explicit and implicit anxiety through mental imagery. Sixty adults imagined themselves in an anxious, calm, or neutral situation. Thereafter, explicit state and trait anxiety were assessed with self-reports, and implicit anxiety was assessed with a variant of the Implicit Association Test. The results indicate that imagery manipulation changed state anxiety in the expected direction. Explicit trait anxiety and implicit anxiety, however, were found to be stable. These findings suggest that the implicit self-concept of anxiety has trait-like characteristics and is as stable against a short-term voluntary mental control strategy as an established explicit measure of trait anxiety.

Predicting actual behavior from the explicit and implicit self-concept of personality.

The authors present a behavioral process model of personality that specifies explicit and implicit aspects of the self-concept of personality as predictors of actual behavior. An extensive behavioral study (N = 130) including a variety of relevant social situations was conducted. This approach allowed reliable measurement of more than 50 behavioral indicators. A priori assignment of indicators to the Big Five dimensions was conducted on the basis of theory and expert ratings. In line with the authors' model, 3 main findings were revealed: First, direct measures (questionnaires) of personality predicted actual behavior for all Big Five dimensions. Second, indirect measures (implicit association tests) of neuroticism and extraversion also predicted actual behavior. Third, the predictive validity of these indirect measures was incremental. The authors were additionally able to show that controlling for valence did not affect any of these results. Implications and future prospects for the study of personality and actual behavior are discussed.

On the Role of the Implicit Self-Concept in Adult Attachment

We report a study that was designed to investigate attachment-related differences in the implicit self-concept and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in the context of attachment research. Two variants of the IAT were used to assess implicit relational self-esteem and relational anxiety after stress induction. Results showed that both the relational self-esteem and relational anxiety IAT (1) were meaningfully related to individual differences in attachment style and (2) predicted cognitive and affective reactions to attachment-related distress in addition to and beyond self-report measures of attachment. The results provide evidence for the reliability and validity of the IAT as an index of the implicit attachment self-concept.

Validity of the Five-Factor Model for the Implicit Self-Concept of Personality

The authors adapted the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in order to assess the implicit self-concept of personality. In two studies (N = 106 and N = 92), confirmatory factor analyses validated the five-factor model for the implicit personality self-concept. Internal consistencies of the IAT proved satisfactory for all Big Five personality dimensions. Correlations between the personality IAT and different self-report measures of personality were generally small, and significant only for Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Patterns of means and factor intercorrelations were, however, highly similar for implicit and explicit personality measures.

The Impact of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder on Dysfunctional Implicit and Explicit Emotions Among Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

A comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) aggravates symptoms, course of illness and social functioning of persons with borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, it is largely unclear how this effect is mediated. In 60 women with BPD of whom 23 had a comorbid current PTSD we investigated whether dysfunctional explicit and implicit emotions were associated with a comorbid PTSD. Shame and guilt proneness, anxiety, anger-hostility, and general psychopathology were assessed by self-report measures. Implicit anxiety-related self-concept was measured using the Implicit Association Test. Self-reported guilt proneness and general psychopathology, but not shame proneness or trait anxiety, were significantly higher in women with BPD and PTSD than in women with BPD alone. A comorbid PTSD was associated with a more anxiety-prone (relative to shame-prone) implicit self-concept as assessed by the Implicit Association Test. Self-reported guilt proneness and implicit anxiety may mediate the negative impact of comorbid PTSD on women with BPD.

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.

Shame and Implicit Self-Concept in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

Objective: Shame is considered to be a central emotion in borderline personality disorder and to be related to self-injurious behavior, chronic suicidality, and anger-hostility. However, its level and impact on people with borderline personality disorder are largely unknown. The authors examined levels of self-reported shame, guilt, anxiety, and implicit shame-related self-concept in women with borderline personality disorder and assessed the association of shame with self-esteem, quality of life, and anger-hostility. Method: Sixty women with borderline personality disorder completed self-report measures of shame- and guilt-proneness, state shame, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, quality of life, and clinical symptoms. Comparison groups consisted of 30 women with social phobia and 60 healthy women. Implicit shame-related self-concept (relative to anxiety) was assessed by the Implicit Association Test. Results: Women with borderline personality disorder reported higher levels of shame- and guilt-proneness, state shame, and anxiety than women with social phobia and healthy comparison subjects. The implicit self-concept in women with borderline personality disorder was more shame-prone (relative to anxiety-prone) than in women in the comparison groups. After depression was controlled for, shame-proneness was negatively correlated with self-esteem and quality of life and positively correlated with anger-hostility. Conclusions: Shame, an emotion that is prominent in women with borderline personality disorder, is associated with the implicit self-concept as well as with poorer quality of life and self-esteem and greater anger-hostility. Psychotherapeutic approaches to borderline personality disorder need to address explicit and implicit aspects of shame.

Shame and Implicit Self-Concept in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

Shame is considered to be a central emotion in borderline personality disorder and to be related to self-injurious behavior, chronic suicidality, and anger-hostility. However, its level and impact on people with borderline personality disorder are largely unknown. The authors examined levels of self-reported shame, guilt, anxiety, and implicit shame-related self-concept in women with borderline personality disorder and assessed the association of shame with self-esteem, quality of life, and anger-hostility. Sixty women with borderline personality disorder completed self-report measures of shame- and guilt-proneness, state shame, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, quality of life, and clinical symptoms. Comparison groups consisted of 30 women with social phobia and 60 healthy women. Implicit shame-related self-concept (relative to anxiety) was assessed by the Implicit Association Test. Women with borderline personality disorder reported higher levels of shame- and guilt-proneness, state shame, and anxiety than women with social phobia and healthy comparison subjects. The implicit self-concept in women with borderline personality disorder was more shame-prone (relative to anxiety-prone) than in women in the comparison groups. After depression was controlled for, shame-proneness was negatively correlated with self-esteem and quality of life and positively correlated with anger-hostility. Shame, an emotion that is prominent in women with borderline personality disorder, is associated with the implicit self-concept as well as with poorer quality of life and self-esteem and greater anger-hostility. Psychotherapeutic approaches to borderline personality disorder need to address explicit and implicit aspects of shame.

Discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-concepts: Consequences for information processing.

Individuals with discrepancies among their explicit beliefs often engage in greater elaboration of discrepancy-related information in a presumed attempt to reduce the discrepancy. The authors predicted that individuals with discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-conceptions might similarly be motivated to engage in processing of discrepancy-related information, even though they might not be aware of the discrepancy. Four studies were conducted in which various self-dimensions were assessed with explicit and implicit measures. Across several different self-dimensions (e.g., need to evaluate, self-esteem), the authors found that as the discrepancy between the explicit and implicit measure increased (regardless of direction), people engaged in more thinking about information framed as related to the self-dimension on which the discrepancy existed. This research suggests that individuals might be motivated to examine relevant information as a strategy to minimize the implicit doubt that accompanies an inconsistency between explicit and implicit self-conceptions.

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.

Implicit Self-Concept and Evaluative Implicit Gender Stereotypes: Self and Ingroup Share Desirable Traits

Experiment 1 unexpectedly found sex differences in evaluative gender stereotypes (only men associated male with potency and only women associated female with warmth). Experiment 2 dramatically reduced sex differences in gender-potency judgments when measures were redesigned to avoid implying that potency was positive (the concepts, strong and weak, were represented by evaluatively matched words; e.g., destroy vs. feeble, loud vs. quiet, and mighty vs. gentle). Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that these sex differences were in the service of self-esteem but found no correlation between own-gender-favorable stereotyping and implicit self-esteem. Rather, participants showed a correlation between linking self to the favorable potency trait and linking own gender to that trait. Experiment 4 confirmed the correlation between implicit self-concept and gender stereotype using the contrast between potency and warmth for the implicit stereotype measure. In concert, results suggest that people possess implicit gender stereotypes in self-favorable form because of the tendency to associate self with desirable traits.

Measuring individual differences in implicit self-concept: initial validation of the self-apperception test

Implicit self-concept as a prominent form of implicit social cognition ( Greenwald and Banaji, 1995) has been eluding psychometric quantification, in the absence of indirect measurement procedures that are sensitive to implicit self-representations. The capacity of a new Self-Apperception Test (SAT; Aidman, 1997) to measure implicit self-attitudes is examined. The instrument employs Fedotova's ( Fedotova, 1987) version of Liggett's ( Liggett, 1959) projective facial images in a visual semantic differential format. In four studies, the SAT showed acceptable levels of internal consistency and retest stability, and promising validity characteristics. Its Implicit Self-Liking Index (ISL), despite weak correlations with Coopersmith's ( Coopersmith, 1981) and Rosenberg's ( Rosenberg, 1965) self-esteem scales, significantly correlated with Tafarodi and Swann's ( Tafarodi and Swann, 1995) self-liking scale, a theoretically constructed measure of self-worth (a subdimension of global esteem). The ISL and its twin index of Implicit Self-Confidence, correlated with theoretically derived markers of implicit self-esteem _ initial letter preferences ( Nuttin, 1987) and self-positivity projection ( Greenwald and Banaji, 1995) _ while neither of the questionnaires did. Results confirmed a distinct ontological status of the implicit measures and indicated directions for their further validation. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.