Implicit and explicit attitudes toward smoking in a smoking and a nonsmoking setting

To test whether global smoking attitudes may be a driving factor in smoking behavior, Experiment 1 assessed smoking associations with the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Although smokers' attitudes (N=24) were less negative than those of nonsmokers (N=24), both displayed negative associations with smoking. To test whether these findings may be an artifact of measurement setting and/or the indirect measure that was used, Experiment 2 assessed attitudes in a smoking (N=20) or a nonsmoking setting (N=20) using the IAT and an Affective Simon Task. In both settings, negative attitudes emerged, suggesting that global (implicit) attitudes may be a moderating rather than a driving factor in smoking behavior.