Evaluative conditioning effects are modulated by the nature of contextual pairings

An Assimilative Effect of Stimulus Co-Occurrence on Evaluation Despite Contrasting Relational Information

The co-occurrence of a neutral stimulus with affective stimuli typically causes the neutral stimulus's evaluation to shift toward the affective stimuli's valence. Does that assimilative effect occur even when one knows the co-occurrence is due to an opposition relation between the stimuli (e.g., Batman stops crime)? Previous evidence tentatively supported that possibility, based on results compatible with an assimilative effect obscured by a larger contrast effect of the opposition relation (e.g., people like Batman less than expected, perhaps due to his co-occurrence with crime). We report three experiments (N = 802) in which participants preferred stimuli that stopped positive events over stimuli that stopped negative events-an assimilative effect of co-occurrence, unobscured by a contrast effect, despite comprehending the opposition relation and its evaluative implications. Our findings suggest that the assimilative effect of co-occurrence is potentially ubiquitous, not limited only to co-occurrence due to relations that suggest valence similarity.

Thinking of learning phenomena as instances of relational behavior

We explore the idea that some learning phenomena can be thought of as instances of relational behavior-more specifically, arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR). After explaining the nature of AARR, we discuss what it means to say that learning phenomena such as evaluative and fear conditioning are instances of AARR. We then list several implications of this perspective for empirical and theoretical research on learning, as well as for how learning phenomena relate to other psychological phenomena in human and nonhuman animals.

EXPRESS: Observational evaluative conditioning is sensitive to relational information

Social learning represents an important avenue via which evaluations can be formed or changed. Rather than learn slowly through trial and error, we can instead observe how another person (a "model") interacts with stimuli and quickly adjust our own behaviour. We report five studies (n = 912) that focused on one subtype of social learning, observational evaluative conditioning (OEC), and how it is moderated by relational information (i.e., information indicating how a stimulus and a model's reactions are related). Participants observed a model reacting positively to one stimulus and negatively to another, and were either told that these reactions were genuine, faked, or opposite to the model's actual feelings. Stimulus evaluations were then indexed using ratings and a personalised Implicit Association Test (pIAT). When the model's reactions were said to be genuine, OEC effects emerged in the expected direction. When the model's reactions were said to be faked, the magnitude of self-reported, but not pIAT, effects was reduced. Finally, stating that the model's reactions were opposite to his actual feelings eliminated or reversed self-reported effects and eliminated pIAT effects. We consider how these findings relate to previous work as well as mental-process theories.

Attitudes as propositional representations

Attitudes are mental representations that help to explain why stimuli evoke positive or negative responses. Until recently, attitudes were often thought of as associations in memory. This idea inspired extensive research on evaluative conditioning (EC) and implicit evaluation. However, attitudes can also be seen as propositional representations, which, unlike associations, specify relational information and have a truth value. We review research on EC and implicit evaluation that tested the basic tenets of the propositional perspective on attitudes. In line with this perspective, studies show that both phenomena are moderated by relational and truth information. We discuss implications for the prediction and influencing of seemingly irrational behavior such as excessive alcohol intake and implicit racial bias.

Propositional Accounts of Implicit Evaluation: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

Associative accounts suggest that implicit (indirectly measured) evaluations are sensitive primarily to co-occurrence information (e.g., pairings of gorges with positive experiences) and are represented associatively (e.g., Gorge–Nice). By contrast, recent propositional accounts have argued that implicit evaluations are also responsive to relational information (e.g., gorges causing vs. preventing ennui) and are represented propositionally (e.g., “I find gorges fascinating”). In a review of 30 empirical papers involving exposure to contradictory co-occurrence information and relational information, we found overwhelming evidence for the latter dominating the updating of implicit evaluations, supporting the propositional perspective. However, unlike explicit evaluations, implicit evaluations seem recalcitrant in the face of relational information that requires retrospective revaluation of already encoded co-occurrence information. These findings may be jointly explained by a “common currency” hypothesis under which implicit evaluations emerge from compressed summary representations, which are sensitive to relational information but are not fully propositional.

Learning to Like or Dislike: Revealing Similarities and Differences Between Evaluative Learning Effects

Researchers study phenomena such as the mere-exposure effect, evaluative conditioning, and persuasion to learn more about the ways in which likes and dislikes can be formed and changed. Often, these phenomena are studied in isolation. Here, we review and integrate conceptual analyses that highlight ways to relate these different phenomena and that reveal new avenues for research on evaluative learning. At the core of these analyses lies the idea that evaluative learning can be defined as changes in liking that are due to regularities in the environment. We discuss how this definition allows one to distinguish different types of evaluative learning on the basis of the nature of regularities (e.g., in the presence of one stimulus vs. in the presence of two stimuli) and the function of regularities (i.e., symbolic vs. nonsymbolic).

Conditioning is More Than Association Formation: On the Different Ways in Which Conditioning Research is Valuable for Clinical Psychology

Cognitively-oriented clinical psychologists sometimes think of conditioning as the formation of associations in memory. From this perspective, conditioning research is important because it reveals the conditions under which potentially pathogenic associations are formed and can be changed. In this paper, I point out that it is also possible and useful to think of conditioning in ways that do not refer to associations. First, based on the idea that conditioning effects are due to the formation of propositional beliefs, it is possible to appreciate that conditioning research informs us about one way of forming or revising beliefs: via the experience of events. Second, conditioning research reveals the environmental causes of behavior and behavior change and thus has merit regardless of ideas about the cognitive processes and representations that mediate conditioning. By discussing these different perspectives on conditioning as well as the way in which they are related, I hope to provide the reader with a wider appreciation of the merits of conditioning research for clinical psychology.

The effect of co-occurrence and relational information on speeded evaluation

After co-occurrence of a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) with an affective unconditioned stimulus (US), the evaluation of the CS acquires the US valence. This effect disappears when information about the CS-US relation indicates that they are opposite in valence. In that case, people often show a contrastive effect, evaluating the CS with valence opposite of the US. We investigated whether the assimilative effect of co-occurrence persists and is only obscured by a stronger counteracting contrast effect of the inference from the CS-US opposition relation. Participants evaluated CSs that had opposite relations with the USs under time pressure, a condition that restricts inference processes more than it restricts the associative processes that might underlie the assimilative effect of co-occurrence. Evidence supporting the persistence of the assimilative effect emerged only in Experiment 2 (N = 79): Under time pressure, people evaluated creatures that ended positive sounds more favourably than creatures that ended negative sounds. However, no difference between the creatures' evaluations occurred under time pressure in Experiments 1 and 3 (Ns = 78, 460). These results are inconclusive because they might reflect equal contrastive and assimilative effects or no effects at all. We discuss further research directions to test our question.

Examining the impact of distance as a contextual cue in evaluative conditioning

According to a symbolic perspective on EC, pairings constitute a relational contextual cue in the environment. It is the relationship between stimuli as cued by the pairing (i.e., pairings = similar) that determines the observed change in liking. Across five pre-registered studies (N = 747) we manipulated the absolute or relative distance between different pairs of conditioned (CS) and unconditioned stimuli (US) under the assumption that this would influence the type of relation that the pairings would cue (i.e., close = similar; far = different). In all five studies we obtained repeated and strong evidence that stimulus pairings led to changes in implicit and explicit evaluations. Although we found that these effects were moderated by absolute distance manipulations, evidence did not emerge indicating that those same effects were moderated by relative distance manipulations. These findings fail to provide strong support for a symbolic perspective on EC. We discuss the implications of our findings as well as future research in this area.