Experiments on the Automaticity of Political Beliefs and Attitudes

Political science has long relied on explicit responses in order to understand what and how people think. New research in the cognitive sciences suggests that this reliance on conscious considerations provides but a partial picture of how citizens think and reason. Given the limitations of conscious working memory and the growing evidence that much of human cognition occurs outside of awareness, the defining empirical assumption of modern public opinion research—that citizens can tell us what is on their minds—seems increasingly suspect. Moreover, social science is particularly challenged by the sensitivity of their topics, which in turn raises social and personal desirability concerns about self-report data. In order to overcome these limitations, we propose an implicit experimental approach. We contend that implicit measures enable us to measure some of the automatic and affective responses and predispositions that influence thoughts and behaviors outside of conscious awareness.