Introduction
The use of implicit and explicit attitudes as a means of ascertaining an individual’s behaviour has been a hot debate for psychologists for a long time. The implicit attitudes refer to the innate predisposition of an individual which cannot be seen externally by others. On the other hand, external attitudes can be observed to decide an individual’s behaviour.
The question at hand is the better predictor between implicit and explicit attitudes in behaviour. A lot of research has been done regarding the question in order to enable psychologists ascertain the more reliable attitude. Through that knowledge, it will be possible to apply it in social sciences to develop strategies of dealing with individuals.
The Studies and Findings
According to Greenwald, Poehlman, " Uhlmann (2009), the early studies done the 1970s and 1980s on the subject were based on self-report methods which entailed phrasing of the attitude measures in line with the behaviour under scrutiny. The second method involved the identification and capitalization of moderating factors such as the value given displayed by the individual for an extended period.
The Implicit Attitude Test has been the mostly applied technique of determining the prediction of human behaviour. It is a good predictor of internal consistency. The method is not affected by the number of attempts, the duration of the tests, and the number of patterns (Greenwald et al., 2009). Additionally, its associative nature of events makes it a reliable tool for predicting behaviour. The consistency depicted from the IAT measure has made it be applied in fields such as conducting businesses, policy formulation and law enforcement. It was noted that when it came to asking some of the respondents to slow their response to a combined assessment, they explicitly faked the result. However, the innocent and naive persons did not discover that move. The study established that implicit attitudes are better predictors of human behaviour.
According to Perugini (2005), the application of explicit attitudes has been used for a long time to influence behaviour. He went further and said that even implicit attitudes affect behaviour. Firstly, it was found out that both can measure addiction but with some slight variations. Secondly, the explicit attitudes were found to measure an individual’s intentional behaviour whereas the implicit attitude was a good predictor of abrupt behaviour displayed by an individual. Lastly, it was pointed out that both interact with one another to influence behaviour. The three were classified into addictive, double dissociation, and multiplicative models respectively. The first study was about smoking whereby a sample size of 48 persons was chosen. On the other hand, it was based on the favourite of an individual between snacks and fruits with a sample size of 109 being used.
Perugini (2005) established that implicit attitudes enable an individual to effortlessly process and synthesize information which makes the person act without his or her knowledge. Despite the multiple means of measuring implicit attitudes, it was established that the implicit attitude test was the most effective means of ascertaining behavioural prediction. Moreover, the implicit attitude test has been confirmed to be the best measure and a valid predictor of behaviour.
When it comes to explicit attitudes, it is noted that other factors influence how the individual reacts. This makes them behave to suit personal external influences such as social pressure. Hence, the implicit attitudes appear superior since the final behaviour is done unconsciously and is not bound to be done to conform to a particular setting (Perugini, 2005). Moreover, the individual will also act from perceived feelings and previous behaviour. The major mediating factors in such a scenario include personal beliefs, attitudes, controllers of the behaviour and the expected emotional output.
Each model is used to ascertain a particular category of behaviour (Perugini, 2005). The interchange of the implicit and explicit attitudes on the same components would bring about some slight variations in the results. He says that more research will be required to illustrate which attitude is unique.
According to Marquardt and Hoeger (2009), the deliberate decision making in business is influenced by implicit attitudes of the maker. The implicit attitudes were used in making ethical decisions by employees and managers. Additionally, it was established that the behavioural characteristics of managers as well as the employees were the driving factor towards their ethical or unethical attributes. Such behaviour was attributed to their moral dispositions and virtues. Through the understanding of these influences, it became paramount for a study to be done which would demonstrate their predictor for managerial decision making.
The need to have ethical employees was driven by the experience learnt by organizations for the negative impact of having unethical employees. The unscrupulous employees would bring a company’s name into disrepute and making it lose business (Marquardt " Hoeger, 2009). The increase in preference in implicit attitudes in sociology and psychology has grown tremendously over the years. This is partly due to the inherent ability to interact with external thoughts and observed behaviour. The implicit attitudes conduct evaluations from anonymous sources and are subconsciously triggered.
The explicit form of decision making that entails consideration of the environment and experiences follows a procedural process in seeking solutions (Marquardt " Hoeger, 2009).A manager that applies explicit decision making would consider the interest of stakeholders, managers, employees, and directors in determining the desirability of a project or goal.
However, in business, intuition is the most suitable decision-making mechanism applied by managers. Additionally, it is the implicit attitude that influences the thoughtful decision-making process of the managers (Marquardt " Hoeger, 2009). It is stated that intuition from the implicit attitudes precedes deliberative, explicit attitudes in decision making. Moreover, business decisions are made in circumstances where there is uncertainty, insufficient information, prudent consideration for every step taken, and the long-term impacts of the decision made. Hence, the implicit attitudes dependence is a better predictor of human behaviour.
The implicit attitudes have been proven handy in the business world in making ethical decisions that are crucial for the survival of an entity (Marquardt " Hoeger, 2009). The application of implicit attitudes on the decision making was found to surpass the explicit attitudes.
According to De Houwer (2006), implicit attitudes lead to the best measure of behaviour due to their reflex action that requires no intervention. This makes them give the best assessment of an individual’s behaviour. He notes that the interest in using implicit measures has grown over the years whereby many psychologists have used various means such as the Implicit Association Test, affective priming task, the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task, and the word association task. This has enabled the implicit attitude to be incorporated in many psychological fields such as marketing, management, health psychology, clinical psychology and so forth.
De Houwer (2006) noted that as opposed to explicit measures, the implicit measure indicates three characteristics as found from other research works. These include the participant’s unawareness of being measured, inability to control the results, unawareness of what is being scrutinized. This means that what is being investigated cannot be mediated by the researchers under implicit attitudes.
According to De Houwer (2006), the knowledge of the participant in the implicit measurement does not have an impact on the outcome of the test. This was attributed to the test that was conducted on the Americans’ attitude to non-whites. During reaction times of the test, their speed of response was slower due to incompatibility with the question under scrutiny.
Nosek, Hawkins, and Frazier (2011) also noted that implicit measures are reliable in displaying individual’s exact behavioural characteristics accurately. They stated that what someone thinks in mind surpasses anything that can be reported. Additionally, what someone may purport to measure at any given time may be reliable or unreliable to the desired outcome. They pointed out that conducting interviews on individuals through explicit measures may not be reliable because they are designed to give particular responses from the respondent.
Additionally, explicit measurements bar people from displaying their true self due to restrictions in their chances, consciousness, capability, and motivation (Nosek, Hawkins, " Frazier, 2006). On the other hand, implicit measures give the respondents all the above freedoms. Consequently, the outcome becomes relevant and accurate. Moreover, implicit measures do not require the participants to be involved in reporting themselves since the tests are done indirectly.
Conclusion
The use of implicit attitudes has been proven to be the best predictor of human behaviour. This is contributed by its spontaneous nature without control from external sources. Through this, the outcome is naturally realized and can be reliable. On the other hand, explicit attitudes are external and are generally controlled by the researchers to get a specific outcome. This attribute makes the respondents fake their character to suit the desired outcome which leads to misrepresentation. Hence, implicit attitudes are better in predicting human behaviour.
References
De Houwer, J. (2006). What are implicit measures and why are we using them. The Handbook of Implicit Cognition and Addiction, 11-28.
Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., " Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(1), 17.
Marquardt, N., " Hoeger, R. (2009). The effect of implicit moral attitudes on managerial decision-making: An implicit social cognition approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 85(2), 157-171.
Nosek, B. A., Hawkins, C. B., " Frazier, R. S. (2011). Implicit social cognition: From measures to mechanisms. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(4), 152-159.
Perugini, M. (2005). Predictive models of implicit and explicit attitudes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44(1), 29-45.
