When implicit fails: Explicit but not implicit attitudes predict choices of decided and undecided voters

Abstract Introduction A recent study (Friese et al., 2012) involving two major political elections in the US and Germany reported that voting behavior was better predicted by explicit than implicit attitudes for both decided and undecided voters and that when voting behavior was predicted by implicit attitudes, the prediction was better for decided than undecided voters. Objective We conducted a comparable study for the 2012 French presidential election using voter volatility as a measure of voter decidedness, in order to test the generalizability of the findings of Friese et al. (2012). Method Participants’ voting intention, explicit and implicit attitudes towards the candidates Sarkozy and Hollande were collected during the 2 weeks separating the two rounds of the election. Results Our findings confirm that explicit attitudes outperform implicit attitudes when predicting voting choice, but not that the relationship between implicit attitudes and voting intention is moderated by voter decidedness. Conclusion Further research is needed in order to test whether the moderation of implicit attitudes by voter decidedness is a robust finding or not.