Attribution Impacts Implicit (And Explicit) Evaluations

Two studies examined whether the attributional framing of negative events affected explicit evaluations, as measured by differences in liking, and implicit evaluations, as measured by the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998). In Study 1, participants read negative information about a novel target ordered to elicit internal or external attributions. Participants in the internal attribution condition evaluated the target more negatively than did those in the external attribution condition on both implicit and explicit measures. Study 2 replicated these results and tested the effects of attribution on recently formed negative evaluations. Participants who evaluated targets before and after receiving additional negative information about them demonstrated implicit and explicit evaluative change consistent with the attributional framing of that information. This research provides clear evidence that attribution influences the formation and change of implicit evaluations; however, these effects were weaker than those on explicit measures of evaluation.

Revising mental representations of faces based on new diagnostic information

Extending evidence for the rapid revision of mental representations of what other people are like, we explored whether people also rapidly revise their representations of what others look like. After learning to ascribe positive or negative behavioral information to a target person and generating a visualization of their face in a reverse-correlation task, participants learned new information that was (a) counter-attitudinal and diagnostic about the person's character or (b) neutral and non-diagnostic, and then they generated a second visualization. Ratings of these visualizations in separate samples of participants consistently revealed revision effects: Time 2 visualizations assimilated to the counter-attitudinal information. Weaker revision effects also emerged after learning neutral information, suggesting that the evaluative extremity of visualizations may dilute when encountering any additional information. These findings indicate that representations of others' appearance may change upon learning more about them, particularly when this new information is counter-attitudinal and diagnostic.

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.

Powerful Effects of Diagnostic Information on Automatic and Self-Reported Evaluation: The Moderating Role of Memory Recall

We sometimes learn about certain behaviors of others that we consider diagnostic of their character (e.g., that they did immoral things). Recent research has shown that such information trumps the impact of other (less diagnostic) information both on self-reported evaluations and on more automatic evaluations as probed with indirect measures such as the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP). We examined whether facilitating memory recall of alternative information moderates the impact of diagnostic information on evaluation. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants learned one diagnostic positive and one diagnostic negative behavior of two unfamiliar people. Presenting a cue semantically related to this information during evaluation influenced AMP scores but not self-reported liking scores. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that elaborative rehearsal of low diagnostic information eliminated diagnosticity effects on AMP scores and reduced them on self-reported liking scores. These findings help elucidate the role of memory recall and diagnosticity in evaluation.

The Long-Term Effects of New Evidence on Implicit Impressions of Other People

Implicit impressions are often assumed to be difficult to update in light of new information. Even when an intervention appears to successfully change implicit evaluations, the effects have been found to be fleeting, reverting to baseline just hours or days later. Recent findings, however, show that two properties of new evidence—diagnosticity and believability—can result in very rapid implicit updating. In the current studies, we assessed the long-term effects of evidence possessing these two properties on implicit updating over periods of days, weeks, and months. Three studies assessed the malleability of implicit evaluations after memory consolidation (Study 1; N = 396) as well as the longer-term trajectories of implicit responses after exposure to new evidence about novel targets (Study 2; N = 375) and familiar ones (Study 3; N = 341). In contrast with recent work, our findings suggest that implicit impressions can exhibit both flexibility after consolidation and durability weeks or months later.

Easy to Make, Hard to Revise: Updating Spontaneous Trait Inferences in the Presence of Trait-Inconsistent Information

Previous research has shown that perceivers spontaneously form trait inferences from others' behaviors received at a single point in time. The present work examined the persistence of spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) in the presence of trait-inconsistent information about others. We hypothesized that STIs should be resistant to change over time and in the presence of new trait-inconsistent information due to perceivers forming and storing multiple STIs independently in memory. Consistently, Experiments 1a and 1b showed that initial STIs were not affected by new trait-inconsistent information. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that STIs were persistent over 48 hours. Two experiments also tested memory reconsolidation as a possible mechanism of updating first impressions. While STIs were not substantially affected, spontaneous goal inferences (SGIs) were elevated among those with a better explicit memory of behaviors after learning trait-inconsistent information following a memory reactivation procedure. Implications of these findings on impression formation and updating processes are discussed.

Exploring the Contextual Renewal of Conditioned Attitudes After Counterconditioning

Research on contextualized attitude change suggests that, even when coun-terattitudinal information effectively influences evaluations in the context in which this information was learned, previously formed attitudes sometimes continue to determine evaluations in any other context (contextual renewal). Expanding on evidence for contextual renewal in attitude change based on verbal information, five experiments tested the emergence of contextual renewal in evaluative conditioning, involving pairings of a conditioned stimulus with a valenced unconditioned stimulus. Counter to the notion of contextual renewal, counterconditioning changed initially conditioned attitudes to the same extent irrespective of the context. Verbal information presented with the same procedural parameters produced contextual renewal effects only when evaluations were not measured between the formation of initial attitudes and the learning of counterattitudinal information. The results suggest two previously unidentified boundary conditions of contextualized attitude change that need to be reconciled with extant theories of evaluative learning.

A Process Dissociation Model of Implicit Rapid Revision in Response to Diagnostic Revelations

Previous research has demonstrated that implicit evaluations can be reversed with exposure to a single impression-inconsistent behavior. But what exactly is changing when perceivers encounter diagnostic revelations about someone? One possibility is that rapid changes are occurring in the extent to which perceivers view the person positively or negatively. Another possibility is that they override the expression of initial evaluations through control-oriented processes. We conducted three studies (one preregistered) that used multinomial process trees to distinguish between these possibilities. We find consistent support across two different implicit measures that diagnostic behaviors result in rapid changes in evaluative processes. We obtained only inconsistent evidence for effects on more control-oriented processes. These findings thus help to reveal the cognitive processes underlying rapid implicit revision. Implications for theoretical perspectives on implicit attitudes are discussed.

I Know (What) You Are, But What Am I? The Effect of Recategorization Threat and Perceived Immutability on Prejudice

Learning one is similar to a stigmatized group can threaten one's identity and prompt disassociation from the group. What are the consequences of learning of a similarity to a stigmatized group when that similarity implies possible recategorization into the group? We investigated how learning of an immutable, recategorization implying similarity with an outgroup affects implicitly and explicitly assessed prejudice. In Study 1, White participants who believed they had above average genetic overlap with African Americans showed decreased prejudice on implicit but not explicit measures. In Study 2, straight/heterosexual participants who were led to believe they exhibited some same-sex attraction showed reduced implicitly assessed prejudice, but only if they believed sexual orientation was biologically determined. Thus, learning of an identity-implying similarity with an outgroup can reduce implicit prejudice if that group membership is believed to be immutable. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

When and How Implicit First Impressions Can Be Updated

Human perceivers continually react to the social world implicitly —that is, spontaneously and rapidly. Earlier research suggested that implicit impressions of other people are slower to change than self-reported impressions in the face of contradictory evidence, often leaving them miscalibrated from what one learns to be true. Recent work, however, has identified conditions under which implicit impressions can be rapidly updated. Here, we review three lines of work showing that implicit impressions are responsive to information that is highly diagnostic, believable, or reframes earlier experience. These findings complement ongoing research on mechanisms of changing implicit impressions in a wider variety of groups, from real people to robots, and provide support for theoretical frameworks that embrace greater unity in the factors that can impact implicit and explicit social cognition.

The impact of valenced verbal information on implicit and explicit evaluation: the role of information diagnosticity, primacy, and memory cueing

Previous research has shown that the presentation of valenced information about a target stimulus sometimes has different effects on implicit and explicit stimulus evaluations. Importantly, however, research examining the moderators of implicit-explicit dissociations has often failed to account for differences in the properties of the instruments used to measure implicit and explicit evaluations, preventing a clear interpretation of the results. In an effort to overcome these limitations, we conducted a study that probed the impact of valenced information on implicit and explicit evaluations as measured with procedures that were matched on methodological factors. Participants first read positive and negative information about a person named Bob and then completed measures of implicit and explicit evaluations of Bob. We examined the moderating effect of three characteristics: information diagnosticity, primacy, and whether information retrieval was cued during evaluation. Results of two high-powered experiments showed an effect of diagnosticity on implicit and explicit evaluations, replicating previous work, and extending it to new evaluation measures. We observed primacy effects on explicit evaluations in Experiment 1 and on implicit evaluations in Experiment 2. However, we did not observe memory cueing effects or any interactions. We discuss practical implications as well as implications for cognitive evaluation theories.

Implementation Intentions Reduce Implicit Stereotype Activation and Application

Research has found that implementation intentions, if-then action plans (e.g., "if I see a Black face, I will think safe"), reduce stereotyping on implicit measures. However, it is unknown by what process(es) implementation intentions reduce implicit stereotyping. The present research examines the effects of implementation intentions on stereotype activation (e.g., extent to which stereotypic information is accessible) and stereotype application (e.g., extent to which accessible stereotypes are applied in judgment). In addition, we assessed the efficiency of implementation intentions by manipulating cognitive resources (e.g., digit-span, restricted response window) while participants made judgments on an implicit stereotyping measure. Across four studies, implementation intentions reduced implicit stereotyping. This decrease in stereotyping was associated with reductions in both stereotype activation and application. In addition, these effects of implementation intentions were highly efficient and associated with reduced stereotyping even for groups for which people may have little practice inhibiting stereotypes (e.g., gender).

Changing Deep-Rooted Implicit Evaluation in the Blink of an Eye: Negative Verbal Information Shifts Automatic Liking of Gandhi

It is often assumed that, once established, spontaneous or implicit evaluations are resistant to immediate change. Recent research contradicts this theoretical stance, showing that a person’s implicit evaluations of an attitude object can be changed rapidly in the face of new counterattitudinal information. Importantly, it remains unknown whether such changes can also occur for deep-rooted implicit evaluations of well-known attitude objects. We address this question by examining whether the acquisition of negative information changes implicit evaluations of a well-known positive historic figure: Mahatma Gandhi. We report three experiments showing rapid changes in implicit evaluations of Gandhi as measured with an affect misattribution procedure and evaluative priming task but not with an implicit association test (IAT). These findings suggest that implicit evaluations based on deep-rooted representations are subjective to rapid changes in the face of expectancy-violating information while pointing to limitations of the IAT for assessing such changes.