Using the implicit association test to measure self-esteem and self-concept

White selves: conceptualizing and measuring a dominant-group identity

This article addresses the nature and measurement of White racial identity. White identification is conceptualized as an automatic association between the self and the White ingroup; this association is fostered through social exposure to non-Whites and serves to link self- and ingroup evaluations. Four studies validated a measure of White identification against criteria derived from this model. In Study 1, the White Identity Centrality Implicit Association Test (WICIAT) predicted response latencies in a task gauging self-ingroup merging. In Study 2, the WICIAT correlated with census data tapping exposure to non-Whites. In Studies 3 and 4, the WICIAT predicted phenomena associated with the linking of self- and ingroup evaluations: identity-related biases in intergroup categorization (Study 3) and self-evaluative emotional reactions to ingroup transgressions (Study 4). Together, the findings shed light on the antecedents and consequences of White identity, an often-neglected individual difference construct.

Implicit attitudes in sexuality: gender differences

This study examined the role of gender in both implicit and explicit attitudes toward sexuality. Implicit attitudes are judgments or evaluations of social objects that are automatically activated, often without the individual's conscious awareness of the causation. In contrast, explicit attitudes are judgments or evaluations that are well established in awareness. As described in Oliver and Hyde's (1993) meta-analysis of self-report (explicit) data, women report greater negative attitudes toward sexuality than do men. In the current study, we used the Sexual Opinion Survey (SOS) developed by Fisher, Byrne, White, and Kelley (1988) to index explicit attitudes and the Implicit Association Test (IAT) developed by Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998) to index implicit attitudes. Research has demonstrated that the IAT reveals attitudes that participants may be reluctant to express. Independent variables examined were participant gender, social acceptability of sexual words, and order of associated evaluations in the IAT (switching from positive to negative evaluations or the reverse). The IAT data revealed a significant Order x Gender interaction that showed that women had more negative implicit attitudes toward sexuality than did men. There was also a significant Order x Acceptability interaction, indicating that implicit attitudes were more strongly revealed when the sexual words used in the IAT were more socially unacceptable. As expected, on the SOS, women had more negative explicit attitudes toward sexuality. There was no significant correlation between explicit and implicit attitudes. These data suggest that at both automatic (implicit) and controlled (explicit) levels of attitudes, women harbor more negative feelings toward sex than do men.

Moderators of the relationship between implicit and explicit evaluation

Automatic and controlled modes of evaluation sometimes provide conflicting reports of the quality of social objects. This article presents evidence for 4 moderators of the relationship between automatic (implicit) and controlled (explicit) evaluations. Implicit and explicit preferences were measured for a variety of object pairs using a large sample. The average correlation was r=.36, and 52 of the 57 object pairs showed a significant positive correlation. Results of multilevel modeling analyses suggested that (a) implicit and explicit preferences are related, (b) the relationship varies as a function of the objects assessed, and (c) at least 4 variables moderate the relationship: self-presentation, evaluative strength, dimensionality, and distinctiveness. The variables moderated implicit-explicit correspondence across individuals and accounted for much of the observed variation across content domains. The resulting model of the relationship between automatic and controlled evaluative processes is grounded in personal experience with the targets of evaluation.

Persönlichkeitspsychologie: Stand und Perspektiven

Zusammenfassung. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Persönlichkeitspsychologie eine zur Zeit sehr dynamische sowie interdisziplinär stark vernetzte Teildisziplin der Psychologie ist. Dies geschieht exemplarisch anhand von sechs Forschungsfeldern: (a) Entwicklung statistischer und mathematischer Methoden (z.B. Strukturgleichungsmodelle, Mischverteilungsmodelle), welche an individuellen Unterschieden ansetzen und deren Analyse optimieren; (b) Implizite Assoziationstests als Ergänzung zu Selbstberichten im Rahmen der Persönlichkeitsmessung; (c) Forschungen zu den kognitiven und neuronalen Quellen individueller Unterschiede in der Intelligenz; (d) Forschungen zu biologischen Einflussfaktoren auf Temperamentsmerkmale; (e) quantitative und molekulare Verhaltensgenetik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Beziehung zwischen normaler Variation und psychischen Störungen; und (f) Vorhersage von Ausbildungs- und Berufserfolg.

Contingent Gambling-Drinking Patterns and Problem Drinking Severity Moderate Implicit Gambling-Alcohol Associations in Problem Gamblers

Although problem gambling and problem drinking often co-occur, the processes underlying this association are not well understood. This study investigated the effects of contingent gambling-drinking patterns and problem drinking severity on implicit gambling-alcohol associations. Participants were 144 (34 female) problem gamblers. The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) measured severity of problem gambling. The Brief Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (BMAST) measured severity of problem drinking. The Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480) measured gambling-alcohol associations. Participants who reported drinking when they won displayed faster response time (i.e., priming) on trials where alcohol words were paired with gambling win (e.g., jackpot) vs. gambling loss (e.g., forfeit) words. The tendency to drink in response to losses did not influence the priming effect of win cues or moderate the effects of Win-Drinking Pattern on priming. Severity of problem drinking on the BMAST also correlated positively the priming effects of win cues. These findings indicate that a tendency to drink in response to gambling wins and more severe alcohol problems each coincide with stronger associations between gambling win and alcohol concepts in memory. Such associations can promote drinking and its attendant effects (e.g., poor decision-making) in problem gamblers, and thus, may contribute to co-morbid gambling and alcohol use disorders.

A portable version of the go/no-go association task (GNAT)

The present article describes a portable version of the go/no-go association task (GNAT) that runs on Palm Pilot and Handspring personal digital assistant (PDA) devices. The PDA version of the GNAT was modeled after a portable version of the Implicit Association Test (Dabbs, Bassett, & Dyomina, 2003) and was designed to facilitate measurement of implicit social cognition in field settings and among difficult-to-reach populations. The PDA version of the GNAT was used to assess implicit attitudes about smoking among 11 smokers and 28 nonsmokers. Support for the validity of the PDA version of the GNAT was provided by findings that smokers showed less negative implicit attitudes toward smoking, as measured by the GNAT, than did nonsmokers and that these implicit attitudes were positively correlated with self-reported smoking attitudes among both groups.

American = White?

Six studies investigated the extent to which American ethnic groups (African, Asian, and White) are associated with the category "American." Although strong explicit commitments to egalitarian principles were expressed in Study 1, Studies 2-6 consistently revealed that both African and Asian Americans as groups are less associated with the national category "American" than are White Americans. Under some circumstances, a dissociation between mean levels of explicit beliefs and implicit responses emerged such that an ethnic minority was explicitly regarded to be more American than were White Americans, but implicit measures showed the reverse pattern (Studies 3 and 4). In addition, Asian American participants themselves showed the American = White effect, although African Americans did not (Study 5). The American = White association was positively correlated with the strength of national identity in White Americans. Together, these studies provide evidence that to be American is implicitly synonymous with being White.

Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: II. Method variables and construct validity

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) assesses relative strengths of four associations involving two pairs of contrasted concepts (e.g., male-female and family-career). In four studies, analyses of data from 11 Web IATs, averaging 12,000 respondents per data set, supported the following conclusions: (a) sorting IAT trials into subsets does not yield conceptually distinct measures; (b) valid IAT measures can be produced using as few as two items to represent each concept; (c) there are conditions for which the administration order of IAT and self-report measures does not alter psychometric properties of either measure; and (d) a known extraneous effect of IAT task block order was sharply reduced by using extra practice trials. Together, these analyses provide additional construct validation for the IAT and suggest practical guidelines to users of the IAT.

The social psychology of stigma

This chapter addresses the psychological effects of social stigma. Stigma directly affects the stigmatized via mechanisms of discrimination, expectancy confirmation, and automatic stereotype activation, and indirectly via threats to personal and social identity. We review and organize recent theory and empirical research within an identity threat model of stigma. This model posits that situational cues, collective representations of one's stigma status, and personal beliefs and motives shape appraisals of the significance of stigma-relevant situations for well-being. Identity threat results when stigma-relevant stressors are appraised as potentially harmful to one's social identity and as exceeding one's coping resources. Identity threat creates involuntary stress responses and motivates attempts at threat reduction through coping strategies. Stress responses and coping efforts affect important outcomes such as self-esteem, academic achievement, and health. Identity threat perspectives help to explain the tremendous variability across people, groups, and situations in responses to stigma.

How do I love thee? Let me count the Js: implicit egotism and interpersonal attraction

From the perspective of implicit egotism people should gravitate toward others who resemble them because similar others activate people's positive, automatic associations about themselves. Four archival studies and 3 experiments supported this hypothesis. Studies 1-4 showed that people are disproportionately likely to marry others whose first or last names resemble their own. Studies 5-7 provided experimental support for implicit egotism. Participants were more attracted than usual to people (a) whose arbitrary experimental code numbers resembled their own birthday numbers, (b) whose surnames shared letters with their own surnames, and (c) whose jersey number had been paired, subliminally, with their own names. Discussion focuses on implications for implicit egotism, similarity, and interpersonal attraction.

Temporal Stability of the Implicit Association Test-Anxiety

The Implicit Association Test-Anxiety (IAT-Anxiety; Egloff & Schmukle, 2002) provides an indirect assessment of anxiety by measuring associations of self (vs. other) with anxiety-related (vs. calmness-related) words. In 3 studies (using 3 independent samples), we examined the temporal stability of the IAT-Anxiety. In Study 1, 65 participants responded twice to the IAT-Anxiety with a time lag of 1 week. The test-retest correlation was .58. In Study 2 (N = 39), we extended the time interval between test and retest to 1 month and this yielded a stability coefficient of .62. In Study 3 (N = 36), we examined the long-term stability (time lag: 1 year) of the IAT-Anxiety and this showed a correlation of .47. We discuss implications of these results for the assessment of personality dispositions with the IAT.

A Latent State-Trait Analysis of Implicit and Explicit Personality Measures

Abstract. Explicit personality measures assess introspectively accessible self-descriptions. In contrast, implicit personality measures assess introspectively inaccessible processes that operate outside awareness. However, for both kinds of trait measures, the effect of the situation in which the assessment takes place should be as small as possible. The present study aims at quantifying possible systematic occasion-specific effects on implicit measures (Implicit Association Test) and explicit measures (self-report ratings) of extraversion and anxiety by means of a latent state-trait analysis. This analysis revealed that - as desired for personality assessment - all four measures capture mostly stable interindividual differences. Nevertheless, occasion-specific effects were also observed. These effects were (1) more pronounced for implicit than for explicit measures and (2) more pronounced for anxiety than for extraversion. Implications for the implicit assessment of personality traits are discussed.

Measuring Task-Switching Ability in the Implicit Association Test

Abstract. Recently, the role of method-specific variance in the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was examined ( McFarland & Crouch, 2002 ; Mierke & Klauer, 2003 ). This article presents a new content-unspecific control task for the assessment of task-switching ability within the IAT methodology. Study 1 showed that this task exhibited good internal consistency and stability. Studies 2-4 examined method-specific variance in the IAT and showed that the control task is significantly associated with conventionally scored IAT effects of the IAT-Anxiety. Using the D measures proposed by Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji (2003 ), the amount of method-specific variance in the IAT-Anxiety could be reduced. Possible directions for future research are outlined.

Clarifying the Role of the “Other” Category in the Self-Esteem IAT

Abstract. A. Karpinski (2004 ) recently criticized Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures of self-esteem, arguing that their measurements of self-associations are compromised by their contrasting self with a putatively extremely negative second category, the nonspecific other. The present data show, to the contrary, that the nonspecific other category in the self-esteem IAT is near neutral in valence. Validity of the self-esteem IAT is most appropriately assessed by examining its correlations with conceptually related measures. That has been done in several previous studies that are reviewed here. The nonspecific other category is only one of several choices for representing the concept of other in self-esteem IATs. Choice of the appropriate other category to contrast with self in self-esteem IATs should be guided by the needs of the research question being addressed.

Defensive pride and consensus: strength in imaginary numbers

Failure (Study 1) and attachment separation thoughts (Study 2) caused exaggerated consensus estimates for personal beliefs about unrelated social issues. This compensatory consensus effect was most pronounced among defensively proud individuals, that is, among those with the combination of high explicit and low implicit self-esteem (Study 1) and the combination of high attachment avoidance and low attachment anxiety (Study 2). In Study 3, another form of defensive pride, narcissism, was associated with exaggerated consensual worldview defense after a system-injustice threat. In Study 4, imagined consensus reduced subjective salience of proud individuals' troubling thoughts. Compensatory consensus is seen as a kind of defensive self-affirmation that defensively proud people turn to for insulation from distressing thoughts.

Reactions to counterstereotypic behavior: the role of backlash in cultural stereotype maintenance

Social and economic sanctions for counterstereotypical behavior have been termed the backlash effect. The authors present a model of the role of backlash in cultural stereotype maintenance from the standpoint of both perceivers and actors. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants lost a competition to either atypical or typical men or women and subsequently showed greater tendency to sabotage deviants. Moreover, undermining deviants was associated with increased self-esteem, suggesting that backlash rewards perceivers psychologically. Experiment 3 showed that gender deviants who feared backlash resorted to strategies designed to avoid it (e.g., hiding, deception, and gender conformity). Further, perceivers who sabotaged deviants (Experiment 2) or deviants who hid their atypicality (Experiment 3) estimated greater stereotyping on the part of future perceivers, in support of the model's presumed role for backlash in stereotype maintenance. The implications of the findings for cultural stereotypes are discussed.

Does social desirability inflate the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety?

Although several authors concluded that self-esteem is negatively related to anxiety, it is an open question what role social desirability plays in this relation. In a sample of 61 German students, the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety was significantly reduced from -.59 to -.51 when social desirability was partialed out. Thus, social desirability does seem to inflate the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety when both constructs are measured with self-reports. Yet, this effect of social desirability appears so small that it is probably negligible for most research purposes.

Implicit cognitive distortions and sexual offending

This work develops and tests the semantic-motivation hypothesis of sexual offenders' implicit cognitions. This hypothesis posits that sexual offenders' cognitive distortions emerge at the interface between implicit motivation and cognition. The semantic-motivation hypothesis is used to guide the development of 3 implicit association tests (IATs). These IATs were used to test for the existence of 3 expected child sexual offender implicit cognitive distortions in child sexual offenders ("children as sexual beings," "uncontrollability of sexuality," and "sexual entitlement-bias"). Results showed that child sexual offenders had larger IAT effects than did mainstream offenders and male and female nonoffenders for the "children as sexual beings" and the "uncontrollability of sexuality" implicit theories. Child sexual offenders also had a larger IAT effect than male and female nonoffenders for the "sexual entitlement-bias" implicit theory. Implications for the semantic-motivation hypothesis are discussed.

Increasing implicit self-esteem through classical conditioning

Implicit self-esteem is the automatic, nonconscious aspect of self-esteem. This study demonstrated that implicit self-esteem can be increased using a computer game that repeatedly pairs self-relevant information with smiling faces. These findings, which are consistent with principles of classical conditioning, establish the associative and interpersonal nature of implicit self-esteem and demonstrate the potential benefit of applying basic learning principles in this domain.

Underlying processes in the implicit association test: dissociating salience from associations

The authors investigated whether effects of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) are influenced by salience asymmetries, independent of associations. Two series of experiments analyzed unique effects of salience by using nonassociated, neutral categories that differed in salience. In a 3rd series, salience asymmetries were manipulated experimentally while holding associations between categories constant. In a 4th series, valent associations of the target categories were manipulated experimentally while holding salience asymmetries constant. Throughout, IAT effects were found to depend on salience asymmetries. Additionally, salience asymmetries between categories were assessed directly with a visual search task to provide an independent criterion of salience asymmetries. Salience asymmetries corresponded to IAT effects and also accounted for common variance in IAT effects and explicit measures of attitudes or the self-concept.

An exploration of affective priming as an indirect measure of food attitudes

During the last few years indirect measures of attitudes have been increasingly promoted. Because they are assumed to be less influenced by demand effects, these indirect measures would constitute a better basis to predict behaviour in some circumstances. In two studies, we examined the usefulness of the affective priming paradigm as an indirect measure of food likes and dislikes. Participants were asked to evaluatively categorize word targets, which were primed by individually selected positive and negative food pictures. The first experiment was a basic exploration of the usefulness of the affective priming paradigm to uncover food likes and dislikes, by making use of food stimuli that elicit strong evaluative reactions. The second experiment examined whether the paradigm can also be used in the context of weaker food (dis)likes. It could be demonstrated that both strongly (Experiments 1 and 2) and moderately (Experiment 2) evaluated food primes influenced the speed of responding to the positive and negative target words. No differential sensitivity for attitudes of moderate or extreme evaluative meaning could be demonstrated, however. The implications for future research and the applicability of this indirect index of food (dis)likes are discussed.

Reducing the Influence of Extrapersonal Associations on the Implicit Association Test: Personalizing the IAT

The authors argue that the Implicit Association Test (IAT; A.G. Greenwald, D.E. McGhee, & J.L.K. Schwartz, 1998) can be contaminated by associations that do not contribute to one's evaluation of an attitude object and thus do not become activated when one encounters the object but that are nevertheless available in memory. The authors propose a variant of the IAT that reduces the contamination of these "extrapersonal associations." Consistent with the notion that the traditional version of the IAT is affected by society's negative portrayal of minority groups, the "personalized" IAT revealed relatively less racial prejudice among Whites in Experiments 1 and 2. In Experiments 3 and 4, the personalized IAT correlated more strongly with explicit measures of attitudes and behavioral intentions than did the traditional IAT. The feasibility of disentangling personal and extrapersonal associations is discussed.

Implicit measures in social cognition. research: their meaning and use

Behavioral scientists have long sought measures of important psychological constructs that avoid response biases and other problems associated with direct reports. Recently, a large number of such indirect, or "implicit," measures have emerged. We review research that has utilized these measures across several domains, including attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes, and discuss their predictive validity, their interrelations, and the mechanisms presumably underlying their operation. Special attention is devoted to various priming measures and the Implicit Association Test, largely due to their prevalence in the literature. We also attempt to clarify several unresolved theoretical and empirical issues concerning implicit measures, including the nature of the underlying constructs they purport to measure, the conditions under which they are most likely to relate to explicit measures, the kinds of behavior each measure is likely to predict, their sensitivity to context, and the construct's potential for change.

Self-Knowledge: Its Limits, Value, and Potential for Improvement

Because of personal motives and the architecture of the mind, it may be difficult for people to know themselves. People often attempt to block out unwanted thoughts and feelings through conscious suppression and perhaps through unconscious repression, though whether such attempts are successful is controversial. A more common source of self-knowledge failure is the inaccessibility of much of the mind to consciousness, including mental processes involved in perception, motor learning, personality, attitudes, and self-esteem. Introspection cannot provide a direct pipeline to these mental processes, though some types of introspection may help people construct beneficial personal narratives. Other ways of increasing self-knowledge include looking at ourselves through the eyes of others and observing our own behavior. These approaches can potentially promote self-knowledge, although major obstacles exist. It is not always advantageous to hold self-perceptions that correspond perfectly with reality, but increasing awareness of nonconscious motives and personality is generally beneficial.

Why Do People Need Self-Esteem? A Theoretical and Empirical Review

Terror management theory (TMT; J. Greenberg, T. Pyszczynski, & S. Solomon, 1986) posits that people are motivated to pursue positive self-evaluations because self-esteem provides a buffer against the omnipresent potential for anxiety engendered by the uniquely human awareness of mortality. Empirical evidence relevant to the theory is reviewed showing that high levels of self-esteem reduce anxiety and anxiety-related defensive behavior, reminders of one's mortality increase self-esteem striving and defense of self-esteem against threats in a variety of domains, high levels of self-esteem eliminate the effect of reminders of mortality on both self-esteem striving and the accessibility of death-related thoughts, and convincing people of the existence of an afterlife eliminates the effect of mortality salience on self-esteem striving. TMT is compared with other explanations for why people need self-esteem, and a critique of the most prominent of these, sociometer theory, is provided.

Gender Differences in Automatic In-Group Bias: Why Do Women Like Women More Than Men Like Men?

Four experiments confirmed that women's automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men's and investigated explanations for this sex difference, derived from potential sources of implicit attitudes (L. A. Rudman, 2004). In Experiment 1, only women (not men) showed cognitive balance among in-group bias, identity, and self-esteem (A. G. Greenwald et al., 2002), revealing that men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic own group preference. Experiments 2 and 3 found pro-female bias to the extent that participants automatically favored their mothers over their fathers or associated male gender with violence, suggesting that maternal bonding and male intimidation influence gender attitudes. Experiment 4 showed that for sexually experienced men, the more positive their attitude was toward sex, the more they implicitly favored women. In concert, the findings help to explain sex differences in automatic in-group bias and underscore the uniqueness of gender for intergroup relations theorists.

I Like Myself but I Don't Know Why: Enhancing Implicit Self-Esteem by Subliminal Evaluative Conditioning

On the basis of a conceptualization of implicit self-esteem as the implicit attitude toward the self, it was predicted that implicit self-esteem could be enhanced by subliminal evaluative conditioning. In 5 experiments, participants were repeatedly presented with trials in which the word I was paired with positive trait terms. Relative to control conditions, this procedure enhanced implicit self-esteem. The effects generalized across 3 measures of implicit self-esteem (Experiments 1-3). Furthermore, evaluative conditioning enhanced implicit self-esteem among people with low-temporal implicit self-esteem and among people with high-temporal implicit self-esteem (Experiment 4). In addition, it was shown that conditioning enhanced self-esteem to such an extent that it made participants insensitive to negative intelligence feedback (Experiments 5a and 5b). Various implications are discussed.

From Seeing to Being: Subliminal Social Comparisons Affect Implicit and Explicit Self-Evaluations

The authors hypothesize that social comparisons can have automatic influences on self-perceptions. This was tested by determining whether subliminal exposure to comparison information influences implicit and explicit self-evaluation. Study 1 showed that subliminal exposure to social comparison information increased the accessibility of the self. Study 2 revealed that subliminal exposure to social comparison information resulted in a contrast effect on explicit self-evaluation. Study 3 showed that subliminal exposure to social comparison information affects self-evaluations more easily than it affects mood or evaluations of other people. Studies 4 and 5 replicated these self-evaluation effects and extended them to implicit measures. Study 6 showed that automatic comparisons are responsive to a person's perceptual needs, such that they only occur when people are uncertain about themselves. Implications for theories of social cognition, judgment, and comparison are discussed.

Inspiration: Core Characteristics, Component Processes, Antecedents, and Function

The authors examined the core characteristics, component processes, antecedents, and function of state inspiration. In Studies 1 and 2, inspiration was contrasted with baseline experience and activated positive affect (PA) using a vivid recall methodology. Results supported the tripartite conceptualization of inspiration. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that inspiration may be decomposed into separate processes related to being inspired "by" and being inspired "to." Study 3 found that daily inspiration is triggered by illumination among individuals high in receptive engagement, whereas activated PA is triggered by reward salience among individuals high in approach temperament. Approach temperament was also implicated in being inspired "to." Inspiration and activated PA appear to serve different functions: transmission and acquisition, respectively.

Implicit Self and Identity

Recent advances in research on implicit social cognition offer an opportunity to challenge common assumptions about self and identity. In the present article, we critically review a burgeoning line of research on self-related processes known to occur outside conscious awareness or conscious control. Our discussion focuses on these implicit self-related processes as they unfold in the context of social group memberships. That is, we show that group memberships can shape thoughts, preferences, motives, goals, or behaviors without the actor's being aware of such an influence or having control over such expressions. As such, this research brings to the fore facets of the self that often contrast with experiences of reflexive consciousness and introspection. Far from being rigid or monolithic, these processes are highly flexible, context-sensitive, and deeply rooted in socio-structural realities. As such, work on implicit self and identity renew thinking about the interplay between the individual and the collective.

Selbst und Informationsverarbeitung

Zusammenfassung: Das Selbst wird einerseits als Ergebnis und andererseits als Ausgangspunkt von Informationsverarbeitungsprozessen dargestellt. Zwischen dem Selbst als Produkt von Informationsverarbeitung und dem Selbst als erlebens- und verhaltenssteuerndem Faktor bestehen Wechselwirkungen. Das Selbstwertgefühl speist sich aus wahrgenommenen Erfolgen und Rückmeldungen. Wie solche Ereignisse aber im Einzelnen verarbeitet werden, ist wiederum von der Höhe des Selbstwertgefühls abhängig. Eine besondere Eigenschaft des Systems Mensch ist die Fähigkeit zur Selbstbeobachtung, die eine Voraussetzung für Prozesse der Selbstregulation ist. Bei dieser Form der Metasteuerung reguliert sich das informationsverarbeitende System selbst. Ergebnisse der Literatur zu Selbstkonzept und Selbstwertgefühl werden unter Informationsverarbeitungsperspektive eingeordnet.

Gender differences in implicit weight identity

OBJECTIVE

This study examined gender differences in explicit and implicit attitudes toward overweight and explicit and implicit weight identity.

METHOD

Normal weight women (n=22) and men (n=20) and overweight women (n=20) and men (n=21) completed the Implicit Association Test and portions of the Eating Disorders Questionnaire.

RESULTS

Although explicit and implicit anti-fat attitudes were ubiquitous, gender differences emerged for weight identity. Both men and women provided accurate explicit appraisals of their weight status. However, men implicitly identified themselves as light regardless of actual weight status. Women's implicit weight identity was associated with their actual weight status, explicit weight appraisal, and implicit self-esteem.

DISCUSSION

These findings may provide additional insight into why men are underrepresented among those seeking weight loss and why women are at increased risk for developing eating disorders.

Moral identity and the expanding circle of moral regard toward out-groups

This article examines moral identity and reactions to out-groups during intergroup conflict Four studies suggest that a highly self-important moral identity is associated with an expansive circle of moral regard toward out-group members (Study 1) and more favorable attitudes toward relief efforts to aid out-group members (Study 2). Study 3 examines moral identity and national identity influences on the provision of financial assistance to out-groups. Study 4 investigates the relationship between moral identity and (a) the willingness to harm innocent out-group members not involved in the conflict and (b) moral judgments of revenge and forgiveness toward out-group members directly responsible for transgressions against the in-group. Results are discussed in terms of self-regulatory mechanisms that mitigate in-group favoritism and out-group hostility.

Measuring alcohol expectancies with the implicit association test

Researchers have relied primarily on self-report questionnaires to measure alcohol expectancies. These questionnaires assess explicit expectancies about alcohol but donot provide any measure of the implicit processes that might also play an important role in determining drinking. The implicit association test (IAT; A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & L. K. Schwartz, 1998), a reaction time task, measures differential associations of 2 target concepts with an attribute. In this study, the IAT provided a measure of the strength of associations of alcohol concepts to positive or negative outcomes in memory. This implicit measure of alcohol expectancies successfully predicted alcohol use in 103 undergraduates. The findings also supported the hypothesis that an implicit measure of expectancy can add to the predictive power of existing questionnaire-based measures.