The present study investigated the implicit preference of college students for Chinese
symbols (words, pictures) by the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in order to explore whether
patriotic feelings had implicit characteristics. Results showed that the D value of the words and the
pictures were significantly higher than 0, indicating a significant IAT effect, which showed that
the college students had a significant positive implicit connection to the Chinese symbols. Results
indicated that the patriotic feelings of college students were internalized in general, and there were
significant implicit emotional preferences.