A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept.

TLDR

Social psychology has sought to integrate cognitive and affective constructs, driven by growing interest in implicit cognition, the development of the IAT, and 1950s consistency theories such as Heider’s balance theory. The authors introduce the balanced identity design to test the theory’s correlational predictions and outline two additional predictions yet to be tested. The balanced identity design is used to test the theory’s correlational predictions. The method showed strong consistency patterns in implicit IAT measures, but not in explicit self‑report measures.

Abstract

This theoretical integration of social psychology's main cognitive and affective constructs was shaped by 3 influences: (a) recent widespread interest in automatic and implicit cognition, (b) development of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & J. L. K. Schwartz. 1998), and (c) social psychology's consistency theories of the 1950s, especially F. Heider's (1958) balance theory. The balanced identity design is introduced as a method to test correlational predictions of the theory. Data obtained with this method revealed that predicted consistency patterns were strongly apparent in the data for implicit (IAT) measures but not in those for parallel explicit (self-report) measures. Two additional not-yet-tested predictions of the theory are described.