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Split Feelings: Understanding Implicit and Explicit Political Persuasion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2021

TIMOTHY J. RYAN Open the ORCID record for TIMOTHY J. RYAN [Opens in a new window]  and
YANNA KRUPNIKOV Open the ORCID record for YANNA KRUPNIKOV [Opens in a new window]
TIMOTHY J. RYAN*
Affiliation:
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
YANNA KRUPNIKOV*
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University, United States
*
Timothy J. Ryan, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States, [email protected].
Yanna Krupnikov, Professor, Department of Political Science, Stony Brook University, United States, [email protected].
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Abstract

Research in psychology has established that people have visceral positive and negative reactions to all kinds of stimuli—so-called implicit attitudes. Implicit attitudes are empirically distinct from explicit attitudes, and they appear to have separate consequences for political behavior. However, little is known about whether they change in response to different factors than explicit attitudes. Identifying distinct antecedents for implicit and explicit attitudes would have far-reaching implications for the study of political persuasion. We hypothesized that implicit attitudes would change primarily in response to political advertisements’ emotional valence, but this turned out to be wrong. In contrast, our next hypothesis that implicit (but not explicit) attitudes would improve in response to increased familiarity with an attitude object was supported across several tests. Aside from this finding, our studies illustrate how routine preregistration helps researchers convey what they learned from each test—including when predictions are not borne out.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 115 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 1424 - 1441
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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