Experiments on the Automaticity of Political Beliefs and Attitudes Inna Burdein Stony Brook University Milton Lodge Stony Brook University Charles Taber Stony Brook University Political science has long relied on explicit responses in order to understand what and how people think. New research in the cognitive sciences suggests that this reliance on conscious considerations provides but a partial picture of how citizens think and reason. Given the limitations of conscious working memory and the growing evidence that much of human cognition occurs outside of awareness, the defining empirical assumption of modern public opinion research—that citizens can tell us what is on their minds—seems increasingly suspect. Moreover, social science is particularly challenged by the sensitivity of their topics, which in turn raises social and personal desirability concerns about self-report data. In order to overcome these limitations, we propose an implicit experimental approach. We contend that implicit measures enable us to measure some of the automatic and affective responses and predispositions that influence thoughts and behaviors outside of conscious awareness. KEY WORDS: Experimentation, attitudes, political cognition, implicit attitudes, automaticity The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water. Sigmund Freud In line with Enlightenment views of rationality as the product of conscious human deliberation and in opposition to Freud’s focus on the unconscious mind, Political Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2006 359 0162-895X © 2006 International Society of Political Psychology Published by Blackwell Publishing. Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, and PO Box 378 Carlton South, 3053 Victoria Australia