Expertise and the Implicit-Explicit Relation 1 Running Head: THE EFFECT OF EXPERTISE ON THE IMPLICIT-EXPLICIT RELATION The Effect of Expertise on the Relation between Implicit and Explicit Attitude Measures: An Information Availability/Accessibility Perspective

Three experiments investigate the role of expertise as a moderator of the relationship between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes. Prior research seems to suggest that greater expertise with an attitude object should lead to stronger implicit-explicit correlations. However, a cognitive view of expertise can also predict a weaker implicit-explicit relation. We lay out a framework that helps predict the directionality of the effect of expertise on the implicit-explicit relation and resolve that seeming contradiction. Our framework is based on the availability and accessibility of either detailed attribute information versus global attitudes in explicit attitude measures. We show that object-related and contextual factors differentially affect the availability and accessibility of these two different types of information for novices versus experts, thus determining how expertise moderates the implicit-explicit relation across different evaluation contexts.