Can implicit cognition predict the behavior of professional energy investors? An explorative application of the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

This article reports on the results of two studies involving seventy-seven professional investment managers in Switzerland. We designed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to investigate whether unconscious attitudes toward renewable versus non-renewable energy sources influence investment behavior. In Study 1, we find that there is indeed a correlation between implicit associations and our dependent variable, net investment in solar energy. In Study 2, we replicate the results from Study 1 and also show that implicit associations are more strongly correlated to investment behavior than explicit associations, suggesting that application of the IAT may add value to the analysis of energy investor behavior. As an example of investigating factors influencing decision-making “in the wild”, our study is subject to a number of limitations that can be used as starting points for further research in this area of high societal relevance.