We argue that people include significant others in their implicit self-concepts. That is, people's implicit evaluations of their significant others are related to their own self-evaluations. Data from five different samples supported this idea by demonstrating that people's implicit self-esteem is related to their implicit evaluations of their close others (both implicit self-esteem and implicit evaluations of significant others were assessed using the name-letter measure). This finding held for parent-child, romantic, and sibling relationships as well as for friendships. This finding also held controlling for people's explicit self-esteem and how much people liked letters in general. These findings suggest that people include significant others in their implicit self-concepts, which appear to be distinct representations from people's explicit beliefs. The potential implications for relationship functioning are discussed. © 2010 Psychology Press.
CITATION STYLE
Dehart, T., Pelham, B., Fiedorowicz, L., Carvallo, M., & Gabriel, S. (2011). Including others in the implicit self: Implicit evaluation of significant others. Self and Identity, 10(1), 127–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298861003687880
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