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A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept
This theoretical integration of social psychology’s main cognitive and affective constructs was shaped by 3 influences: (a) recent widespread interest in automatic and implicit cognition, (b) development of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & J. L. K. Schwartz, 1998), and (c) social psychology’s consistency theories of the 1950s, especially F. Heider’s (1958) balance theory. The balanced identity design is introduced as a method to test correlational predictions of the theory. Data obtained with this method revealed that predicted consistency patterns were strongly apparent in the data for implicit (IAT) measures but not in those for parallel explicit (self-report) measures. Two additional not-yet-tested predictions of the theory are described. The Cognitive Consistency Theoretical Tradition Theories of cognitive consistency dominated social psychology in the 1960s. The most influential ones had appeared in the 1950s, including Osgood and Tannenbaum’s (1955) congruity theory, Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory, and Heider’s (1958) balance theory. The high point of consistency theory was the 1968 publication of the six-editor, 920-page handbook, Theorie