This article documents two facts that are provocative in juxtaposition. First: There is multidecade durability of theory controversies in psychology, demonstrated here in the subdisciplines of cognitive and social psychology. Second: There is a much greater frequency of Nobel science awards for contributions to method than for contributions to theory, shown here in an analysis of the last two decades of Nobel awards in physics, chemistry, and medicine. The available documentation of Nobel awards reveals two forms of method–theory synergy: (a) (...) existing theories were often essential in enabling development of awarded methods, and (b) award-receiving methods often generated previously inconceivable data, which in turn inspired previously inconceivable theories. It is easy to find illustrations of these same synergies also in psychology. Perhaps greater recognition of the value of method in advancing theory can help to achieve resolutions of psychology’s persistent theory controversies. (shrink)
Three studies investigated implicit brand attitudes and their relation to explicit attitudes, prod- uct usage, and product differentiation. Implicit attitudes were measured using the Implicit As- sociation Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Study 1 showed expected differ- ences in implicit attitudes between users of two leading yogurt brands, also revealing significant correlations between IAT-measured implicit attitudes and explicit attitudes. In Study 2, users of two fast food restaurants (McDonald’s and Milk Bar) showed implicit attitudi- nal preference for their (...) favorite restaurant. In Study 3, implicit attitudes of users of two soft drinks (Coca-Cola and Pepsi) predicted brand preference, product usage, and brand recognition in a blind taste test. A meta-analytic combination of the three studies showed that the use of IAT measures increased the prediction of behavior relative to explicit attitude measures alone. (shrink)
Subjects classified visible 2-digit numbers as larger or smaller than 55. Target numbers were preceded by masked 2-digit primes that were either congruent (same relation to 55) or incongruent. Experiments 1 and 2 showed prime congruency effects for stimuli never included in the set of classified visible targets, indicating subliminal priming based on long-term semantic memory. Experiments 2 and 3 went further to demonstrate paradoxical unconscious priming effects resulting from task context. For example, after repeated practice classifying 73 as larger (...) than 55, the novel masked prime 37 paradoxically facilitated the “larger” response. In these experiments task context could induce subjects to unconsciously process only the leftmost masked prime digit, only the rightmost digit, or both independently. Across 3 experiments, subliminal priming was governed by both task context and long-term semantic memory. (shrink)
