This review of 122 research reports (184 independent samples, 14,900 subjects) found average r = .274 for prediction of behavioral, judgment, and physiological measures by Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures. Parallel explicit (i.e., self-report) measures, available in 156 of these samples (13,068 subjects), also predicted effectively (average r = .361), but with much greater variability of effect size. Predictive validity of self-report was impaired for socially sensitive topics, for which impression management may distort self-report responses. For 32 samples with criterion measures involving Black-White interracial behavior, predictive validity of IAT measures significantly exceeded that of self-report measures. Both IAT and self-report measures displayed incremental validity, with each measure predicting criterion variance beyond that predicted by the other. The more highly IAT and self-report measures were intercorrelated, the greater was the predictive validity of each.

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An outsized focus on the explanatory value of conscious thought can constrain opportunities to more rigorously examine the influence of less obvious drivers of consumer behavior. This article proposes a more precise, disaggregated, and minimized perspective on consciousness, distinguishing it from other higher-order mental processes (i.e., deliberation, intentionality, control, and effort). A more circumscribed perspective on consciousness, we argue, facilitates attempts to examine the causal impact of low-level, biological, or otherwise unconscious influences, bringing these into the frame of inquiry. Accordingly, we outline how a reduced reliance on consciousness as an explanatory construct deepens inquiry into the processes guiding choice, self-control, and persuasion. Lastly, in a set of recommendations centering on theory, methods, and training, we suggest ways for consumer researchers to evaluate more critically whether the contents of consciousness play a meaningful role in driving behavior.

The judgments and actions of contemporary Americans reflect the implicit influence of America’s Puritan-Protestant heritage. Americans valorize individual merit, a residue of the Protestant emphasis on a personal relationship with God and earthly rewards and punishments. The United States has remained deeply religious and traditional in the face of enormous prosperity, at least in part attributable to the founding influence of the Puritan-Protestants. Americans, but not members of comparison cultures, implicitly link work and divine salvation and display other judgmental biases consistent with implicit Puritanism. As predicted by theories of implicit social cognition, which hold that the influence of traditional cultural values is strongest at an implicit level, less religious and non-Protestant Americans are just as likely to display such effects as devout American Protestants.

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People have automatic associations with a myriad of targets, from political figures to ethnic minorities. Automatic associations may constitute implicit attitudes that are related to, but distinct from explicitly endorsed attitudes. They could also represent knowledge of cultural attitudes unrelated to personal feelings, judgments, and behaviors (the culture-as-contaminant interpretation). Finally, automatic associations could reflect knowledge of cultural attitudes that influences behaviors because individuals use others’ attitudes to guide their own actions (the culture-as-norms interpretation). This chapter finds that automatic associations exhibit relationships with feelings, judgments, and behaviors supportive of the implicit attitudes view and inconsistent with both versions of the cultural knowledge view. Environmental conditioning and the cultural victimization of the target do influence automatic associations. However, such effects are inconclusive because the implicit attitudes view also expects strong environmental and cultural influences on automatic associations. Empirical criteria for resolving the “person or culture?’ debate are proposed.