Implicit 'wanting' without implicit 'liking': A test of incentive-sensitization-theory in the context of smoking addiction using the wanting-implicit-association-test (W-IAT)

摘要

Background and objectives: According to incentive-sensitization theory (IST), addiction is characterized by the decoupling of two subconsciously operating psychological processes 'wanting' (i.e., incentive salience) and 'liking' (i.e., sensory pleasure). The present study set out to test predictions derived from IST in the context of smoking addiction with two variants of the Implicit Association Test (IAT): a Liking-IAT and a Wanting-IAT. In line with IST, we hypothesized that smokers differ from nonsmokers with regard to 'wanting' but not 'liking'.