541 explicit and implicit prejudice were positively correlated when they did not write a counterattitudinal essav.This. under conditions of high situational pressure,but not however,was not the case.Rather,implicit attitudes under con ons were approxin ely equal regardl s of w Second.if participants based their explicit judgments on sses,but not with respect to their content.Hence activated counterattitudinal associations when there was native interpreta h i0liustincationfo atti in the tude obje ences in the particular processes assessed by the em- attitudes should have exhibited a positive correlation ployed measures. d compliance,but not inder forced pos Th General discussion correlated under forced position and control conditions but not under induced compliance conditions. The main goa of the present studie s was to invest the present concep ma on the ther than disso 1957)Bas 2000S Deutsch,in press their attitudes rom obseh ving their own beha and the of di nces in a he r dissonance-related attitude changes were expected to testing the resulting consistency is exactly wha n the ults e pr presen generally support these assumptions such an interpretation in ter ception may Notwithstanding these findings,however,one may the obta udes of ance for tw to thei pulation uninteresting case of low measurement validity.This titudes (e.g..Bem MeConnell.1970).In the presen ruled out by the pre studies.however pants imp eva ated to and control conditions.but not unde conditions of in- udgments under high situational pressure as well as ess implicit under control conditions,suggesting that participants ac ent validity, ctually ha ve c ous acc to the premanipula and implicit attitudes under t onditions that the s of assigning truth values Another possible objection is that writing a counter. causes an uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance could ctivated counterattitudina as true,and on ind general fored position Moreover narticinants ma change even under conditions of low situational pre base heir explicit judgments on these activate if thes ns when there experiences are attribut ed to causes other was n ons for &C 1930 ior.put they may have relied on their old ttitude when still base their explicit autitudinal judgment on their a situational iustification was available.even though chronic evaluative associations even when self-percep sare theo cally possible,they are no ed and ng participants should have exhibited a more favorable self-perception,the feeling of cognitive dissonance still mplicit attitude toward the counterattitu dinal topi plays a when they actually wrote a counterattitudinal essay tharexplicit and implicit prejudice were positively correlated under conditions of high situational pressure, but not under conditions of low situational pressure. Most im￾portantly, these results were obtained even though the employed measures differed only with respect to their processes, but not with respect to their content. Hence, the present findings rule out the alternative interpreta￾tion that the results obtained in Experiment 1 are due to differences in the attitude object, rather than to differ￾ences in the particular processes assessed by the em￾ployed measures. General discussion The main goal of the present studies was to investi￾gate the impact of cognitive dissonance on explicit and implicit attitudes. Drawing on the distinction between associative and propositional processes (Sloman, 1996; Smith & DeCoster, 2000; Strack & Deutsch, in press), we argued that both the cause of dissonance experiences and the process of dissonance reduction require a propositional representation of their elements. Hence, dissonance-related attitude changes were expected to emerge only for explicit attitudinal judgments, but not for implicit evaluative associations. The present results generally support these assumptions. Notwithstanding these findings, however, one may object that the obtained null effect on implicit attitudes is difficult to interpret, since it could reflect either the pre￾dicted stability of implicit attitudes or the theoretically uninteresting case of low measurement validity. This criticism, however, can easily be ruled out by the pre￾dicted finding that implicit attitudes were significantly related to explicit attitudes under both forced position and control conditions, but not under conditions of in￾duced compliance. If the IATs used to assess implicit attitudes actually had low measurement validity, there should have been no significant relation between explicit and implicit attitudes under these conditions. Another possible objection is that writing a counter￾attitudinal essay could have activated counterattitudinal associations, thus resulting in a general change of im￾plicit attitudes under both induced compliance and forced position conditions. Moreover, participants may have based their explicit judgments on these activated counterattitudinal associations when there was no situ￾ational justification for their counterattitudinal behav￾ior, but they may have relied on their old attitude when a situational justification was available. Even though these assumptions are theoretically possible, they are not consistent with the present data. First, if merely writing a counterattitudinal essay affects implicit attitudes, participants should have exhibited a more favorable implicit attitude toward the counterattitudinal topic when they actually wrote a counterattitudinal essay than when they did not write a counterattitudinal essay. This, however, was not the case. Rather, implicit attitudes were approximately equal regardless of whether partic￾ipants did or did not write a counterattitudinal essay. Second, if participants based their explicit judgments on activated counterattitudinal associations when there was no situational justification for their counterattitudinal behavior, but relied on their old attitude when a situa￾tional justification was available, explicit and implicit attitudes should have exhibited a positive correlation under induced compliance, but not under forced posi￾tion conditions. This, however, was also not the case. In contrast, explicit and implicit attitudes were positively correlated under forced position and control conditions, but not under induced compliance conditions. In some respects, the present conceptualization may sound more like self-perception theory (Bem, 1967) ra￾ther than dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957). Basically, self-perception theory states that individuals deliberately infer their attitudes from observing their own behavior and the circumstances in which it occurs. Hence, applied to the present conceptualization one could argue that the propositional processes of assigning truth values and testing the resulting consistency is exactly what self￾perception theory considers as the process of deliber￾ately inferring one
s attitude. However, even though such an interpretation in terms of self-perception may sound quite plausible, we nevertheless favor a concep￾tualization in terms of cognitive dissonance for two reasons. First, self-perception theory usually argues that individuals have no access to their premanipulation at￾titudes (e.g., Bem & McConnell, 1970). In the present studies, however, premanipulation attitudes were clearly reflected in participants
implicit evaluations. Moreover, implicit evaluations were significantly related to explicit judgments under high situational pressure as well as under control conditions, suggesting that participants actually have conscious access to their premanipulation attitudes. Second, the present conceptualization implies that the propositional process of assigning truth values causes an uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance when two propositions are regarded as true, and one follows from the obverse of the other. However, such dissonance experiences may not result in explicit attitude change—even under conditions of low situational pres￾sure—if these experiences are attributed to causes other than cognitive inconsistency (Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper, 1977; Zanna & Cooper, 1974). In this case, people may still base their explicit attitudinal judgment on their chronic evaluative associations even when self-percep￾tion should lead to attitude change. Hence, even though the process of ascribing of truth values and testing the resulting consistency may be considered as a process of self-perception, the feeling of cognitive dissonance still plays a crucial role for attitude changes caused by counterattitudinal behavior. B. Gawronski, F. Strack / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40 (2004) 535–542 541