Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Define Human Behavior

Book excerpt: Polemic Paper from the year 2018 in the subject Medicine - Neurology, Psychiatry, Addiction, grade: 1, Egerton University, language: English, abstract: In the recent years, extensive research has been going on to investigate attitudes and social cognition. From a psychological perspective, these two aspects are of paramount significance to humans because they explain how individuals view the world and life events. It is apparent that individuals possess diverse opinions over different issues, and they express their attitudes on day-to-day life. Ideally, attitudes exhibit behavioral, cognitive and affective elements; thus attitudes determine the way people make choices, as well as determining the way people live. However, the ways attitudes are formed vary significantly so their expressions are relatively divergent. In theory, attitudes exist in two distinct forms: explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes. Therefore, it is logical to understand how these two levels of attitudes are formed. It is apparent that these attitudes have been investigated to design appropriate measures, although implicit attitudes seem to have attracted immense focus in the recent years. Explicit attitudes occur at the conscious level; thus they exert intense effects on decisions and behavior. This is why they can be described as deliberately formed attitudes, and they are characterized by the ease in self-reporting. On the other hand, implicit attitudes occur at an unconscious level. These attitudes are formed involuntarily because they lack conscious access; thus their formation cannot be controlled. However, it is worth noting that implicit attitudes have a significant influence on behavior and decisions. Despite the extensive research on attitudes, processes that guide the formation and operation of both explicit and implicit attitudes have not yet been unraveled. Therefore, this essay will provide an overview of explicit and implicit attitudes. It will compare and contrast explicit and implicit attitudes, and explain reasons for their weak correlation.