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

Abstract

This theoretical integration o f social psycho logy's main cognitive and affect ive constructs was shaped by three influences: (a) recent widespread interest in automatic and implicit cognition, (b) development of the Implicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwa ld, McGhee, & Schwar tz, 1998) , and (c) social psychology's consist ency theo ries of t he 1950s -especially 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 we re strong ly appare nt in the dat a 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. The Cognitive Consistency Theoretical TraditionTheories of cognitive consistency dominated social psychology in the 1960s.The most influential ones had appeared in t he 1950 s, in clud ing Osgo od and Tannenbaum's ( 195 5) congr uit y the or y, Festinger's (1957 ) co gnit ive disso nanc e theo ry, and Heider's (1958) balance theory.The high point of consistency theory was the 1968 publication of the 6-editor, 920-page handbook, Theories of Cognitive Consistency: A Sourcebook (Abelson, Aronson, McGuire, Newcomb, Rosenberg, & Tannenba um, 1968) ; it cont ained 84 chapters by 75 co ntribut ing authors.Now, just over thirty years later, it is remarkable that these once-do minant theories receive at most occasional mention by social psychologists.There are several ways to understand this fall from favor.