Do Implicit Attitudes Predict Actual Voting Behavior Particularly for Undecided Voters?

The prediction of voting behavior of undecided voters poses a challenge to psychologists and pollsters. Recently, researchers argued that implicit attitudes would predict voting behavior particularly for undecided voters whereas explicit attitudes would predict voting behavior particularly for decided voters. We tested this assumption in two studies in two countries with distinct political systems in the context of real political elections. Results revealed that (a) explicit attitudes predicted voting behavior better than implicit attitudes for both decided and undecided voters, and (b) implicit attitudes predicted voting behavior better for decided than undecided voters. We propose that greater elaboration of attitudes produces stronger convergence between implicit and explicit attitudes resulting in better predictive validity of both, and less incremental validity of implicit over explicit attitudes for the prediction of voting behavior. However, greater incremental predictive validity of implicit over explicit attitudes may be associated with less elaboration.

对尚未确定投票意向选民的投票行为进行预测，始终是心理学家与民意调查专家面临的一项棘手挑战。近期有研究者提出：内隐态度（implicit attitudes）对尚未决定投票意向选民的投票行为具有更优的预测力，而外显态度（explicit attitudes）则更适用于预测已明确投票意向选民的投票行为。本研究依托两场真实政治选举场景，在两个政治体制迥异的国家开展两项实验，对该假设进行了验证。研究结果显示：其一，无论选民是否已明确投票意向，外显态度对其投票行为的预测效果均优于内隐态度；其二，相较于尚未确定投票意向的选民，内隐态度对已明确投票意向选民的投票行为预测效果更佳。我们提出，对态度的精细化加工程度越高，内隐与外显态度之间的契合度便越强，二者的预测效度也随之提升，同时内隐态度相较于外显态度在投票行为预测中的增量效度则会降低。反之，若内隐态度相较于外显态度具备更高的增量预测效度，则往往对应着更低水平的态度精细化加工。