Exaggerating differences back and forth: Two levels of intergroup accentuation

Social perceivers tend to exaggerate existing differences between groups, a phenomenon known as intergroup accentuation. In two preregistered experiments, we tested the hypothesis that accentuation originates in the initial learning of information about a novel group. In both experiments, perceivers exaggerated differences between two fictitious social groups that differed probabilistically in two dimensional traits. As hypothesized, accentuation was stronger for the group encountered second, confirming that accentuation originates partly in processes operating during the acquisition of group information. However, accentuation was also robust for the group encountered first, suggesting that it also occurs 'backward' even when group learning was unbiased. We discuss implications for stereotype formation generally and the perception of social minorities and out-groups specifically. As these groups are often encountered second in social reality, stereotypes of them might be particularly polarized.

Deontology and Utilitarianism in Real Life: A Set of Moral Dilemmas Based on Historic Events

Moral dilemmas are frequently used to examine psychological processes that drive decisions between adhering to deontological norms and optimizing the outcome. However, commonly used dilemmas are generally unrealistic and confound moral principle and (in)action so that results obtained with these dilemmas might not generalize to other situations. In the present research, we introduce new dilemmas that are based on real-life events. In two studies (a European student sample and a North American MTurk sample, total N = 789), we show that the new factual dilemmas were perceived to be more realistic and less absurd than commonly used dilemmas. In addition, factual dilemmas induced higher participant engagement. From this, we draw the preliminary conclusion that factual dilemmas are more suitable for investigating moral cognition. Moreover, factual dilemmas can be used to examine the generalizability of previous results concerning action (vs. inaction) and concerning a wider range of deontological norms.

Biased perception of distributions: Anchoring, interpolation and smoothing as potential causes

Perceiving the degree of variation in the social and non-social environment is a cognitive task that is important for many judgments and decisions. In the present research, we investigated cognitive underpinnings of how people estimate the average value of segments of a statistical distribution (e.g., what is the average income of the richest 25% of a population?). In three experiments (total N = 222), participants learned about the values of experimentally created distributions of income values and city sizes and later estimated the mean value of the four quarters of values. We expected participants to draw on heuristic shortcuts to generate such judgments. More specifically, we hypothesized that participants use the endpoints of the distributions as anchors and determine the mean values by linear interpolation. In addition, we tested the contribution of three further processes (Range-Frequency adjustments, Normal Smoothing, Linear Smoothing). Quantitative model tests suggest that anchoring and Linear Smoothing both affected mean interquartile judgments. This conclusion is corroborated by tests of qualitative predictions of the models under consideration.

The psychology of income wealth threshold estimations: A registered report

How do people estimate the income that is needed to be rich? Two correlative survey studies (Study 1 and 2, N = 568) and one registered experimental study (Study 3, N = 500) examined the cognitive mechanisms that are used to derive an answer to this question. We tested whether individuals use their personal income (PI) as a self-generated anchor to derive an estimate of the income needed to be rich (= income wealth threshold estimation, IWTE). On a bivariate level, we found the expected positive relationship between one's PI and IWTE and, in line with previous findings, we found that people do not consider themselves rich. Furthermore, we predicted that individuals additionally use information about their social status within their social circles to make an IWTE. The findings from study 2 support this notion and show that only self-reported high-income individuals show different IWTEs depending on relative social status: Individuals in this group who self-reported a high status produced higher IWTEs than individuals who self-reported low status. The registered experimental study could not replicate this pattern robustly, although the results trended non-significantly in the same direction. Together, the findings revealed that the income of individuals as well as the social environment are used as sources of information to make IWTE judgements, although they are likely not the only important predictors.

Cues of wealth and the subjective perception of rich people

These pre-registered studies shed light on the cues that individuals use to identify rich people. In two studies (N = 598), we first developed a factor-analytical model that describes the content and the mental structure of 24 wealth cues. A third within-subject study (N = 89) then assessed the perception of rich subgroups based on this model of wealth cues. Participants evaluated the extent to which the wealth cues applied to two distinct subgroups of rich people. The results show: German and US-American participants think that one can identify rich people based on the same set of cues which can be grouped along the following dimensions: luxury consumption, expensive hobbies, spontaneous spending, greedy behavior, charismatic behavior, self-presentation, and specific possessions. However, Germans and US-Americans relied on these cues to different degrees to diagnose wealth in others. Moreover, we found evidence for subgroup-specific wealth cue profiles insofar as target individuals who acquired their wealth via internal (e.g., hard work) compared to external means (e.g., lottery winners) were evaluated differently on these wealth cues, presumably because of their perceived differences in valence and competence. Together, this research provides new insights in the cognitive representation of the latent construct of wealth. Practical implications for research on the perception of affluence, and implications for political decision makers, are discussed in the last section.

Using the CNI Model to Investigate Individual Differences in Moral Dilemma Judgments

Typical moral dilemmas pitting the consequences of a given action against the action’s consistency with moral norms confound several determinants of moral judgments. Dissociating these determinants, the CNI model allows researchers to quantify sensitivity to consequences, sensitivity to norms, and general preference for inaction over action regardless of consequences and norms. However, with the currently available set of dilemmas for research using the CNI model, the model is not suitable for studies with individual-difference designs. To overcome this limitation, the current research investigated the suitability of an extended dilemma battery to make the CNI model amenable for individual-difference research, examining relations of its parameters with psychopathy, empathic concern, need for cognition, self-reported utilitarianism, behavioral activation/inhibition, moral identity, and religiosity. The results support the suitability of the CNI model for individual-difference research with the extended dilemma battery, providing more nuanced insights into the underpinnings of individual differences in moral dilemma judgments.

Dissecting Dispositionality: Distance Increases Stability of Attribution

Causes of behavior are often classified as either dispositional (e.g., personality) or situational (e.g., circumstances). However, the disposition–situation dichotomy confounds locus (internal vs. external) and stability (unstable vs. stable) of attribution, rendering it unclear whether locus or stability drives changes in dispositionality. In the present research, we examine the dispositional shift—that is, psychologically distant (vs. near) events are attributed to dispositional (vs. situational) causes. Using construal level theory, we hypothesize that the dispositional shift is caused by a change in stability (but not necessarily locus) of attribution. Two experiments support this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, distant (vs. near) future events were attributed to more stable causes. In Experiment 2, actions by a socially distant person (vs. oneself) were also attributed to more stable (but also more internal) causes. Thus, important psychological manipulations, here psychological distance, can influence causal dimensions selectively, supporting the independence of stability and locus of attribution.

Automatic Antecedents of Discrimination

Abstract. In increasingly diverse societies, discrimination against social groups and their members continues to be a public and political concern. Research has addressed three basic cognitive processes that precede discrimination: categorization, stereotype/prejudice activation, and stereotype/prejudice application, suggesting that these processes occur in an automatic fashion. However, there are multiple components of automaticity, including unawareness, efficiency, unintentionality, and uncontrollability. Most of the previous research implies that these components of automaticity converge with respect to cognitive antecedents of discrimination. Here, we review evidence on the distinct components of automaticity in order to assess whether (a) categorization, (b) stereotype/prejudice activation, and (c) stereotype/prejudice application occur (1) without awareness, (2) efficiently, and (3) goal-independently. We highlight evidence indicating convergence or divergence of the automaticity components during each of the processing stages. This analysis provides readers with an up-to-date review that helps to evaluate whether a multi-component approach to automaticity is of additional benefit in aggregating knowledge about the cognitive antecedents of discrimination. We discuss open issues and avenues for future research.

Post-conflict speeding: Evidence of sequential effects in motivational conflicts

Sequential effects in conflict processing (postconflict slowing and conflict adaptation) have primarily been studied in stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) tasks. Moreover, results obtained in SRC paradigms are often proposed as a model of higher-level motivational conflicts. The authors present 3 experiments suggesting that motivational conflicts, such as approach-approach (AA) and avoidance-avoidance (VV) conflicts partially engage different processes than SRC conflicts and thus result in different sequential effects. Instead of postconflict slowing, they predicted speeding after AA conflicts because they expect the approach motivation component of AA conflicts to briefly increase action readiness. Second, the authors expected larger conflict adaptation in VV than AA conflicts because conflict adaptation is known to be enhanced by inducing negative affect. They conducted 3 experiments with varying intertrial intervals (intertrial interval [ITI]) in which participants repeatedly solved hypothetical motivational conflicts (AA, VV) and nonconflicts (NC). In all three experiments, the authors observed postconflict speeding after AA conflicts compared to NC when the ITI was short. Conflict adaptation proved to be less reliable. These results extend previous research on sequential effects in conflict resolution by showing that sequential effects emerge also in higher-level motivational AA and VV conflicts but partially follow different rules than in SRC paradigms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Inflation von falsch-positiven Befunden in der psychologischen Forschung

Zusammenfassung. In letzter Zeit mehren sich Hinweise darauf, dass gehäuft falsch-positive Befunde in wissenschaftlichen Publikationen berichtet werden und so die Forschungsliteratur ein verzerrtes Bild der Realität widerspiegelt. Das Fachkollegium Psychologie der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft hat dieses Problem aufgegriffen und die möglichen Ursachen von falsch-positiv Befunden diskutiert. Dieser Artikel gibt den Inhalt dieser Diskussion wieder und möchte Antragssteller auffordern, diese Problematik bei Forschungsanträgen stärker zu beachten. Auch appellieren wir an Antragsteller, Gutachter und Herausgeber, den Stellenwert von negativen Befunden sowie von Replikationen bei Forschungsanträgen und wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten einschließlich klinischer Studien stärker zu berücksichtigen.

Watch the target! Effects in the affective misattribution procedure become weaker (but not eliminated) when participants are motivated to provide accurate responses to the target

Previous research showed that priming effects in the affective misattribution procedure (AMP) are unaffected by direct warnings to avoid an influence of the primes. The present research examined whether a priming influence is diminished by task procedures that encourage accurate judgments of the targets. Participants were motivated to categorize the affective meaning of nonsense targets accurately by being made to believe that a true word was presented in each trial and by providing feedback on (allegedly) incorrect responses. This condition produced robust priming effects. Priming was however reduced and less reliable relative to more typical AMP conditions in which participants guessed the meaning of openly presented nonsense targets. Affective judgments of nonsense targets were not affected by advance knowledge of the response mapping during the priming phase, which argues against a response-priming explanation of AMP effects. These findings show that affective primes influence evaluative judgments even in conditions in which the motivation to provide accurate responses is high and a priming of motor responses is not possible. Priming effects were however weaker with high accuracy motivation, suggesting that a focus on accurate judgments is an effective strategy to control for an unwanted priming influence in the AMP.

How absent negativity relates to affect and motivation: an integrative relief model

The present paper concerns the motivational underpinnings and behavioral correlates of the prevention or stopping of negative stimulation – a situation referred to as relief. Relief is of great theoretical and applied interest. Theoretically, it is tied to theories linking affect, emotion, and motivational systems. Importantly, these theories make different predictions regarding the association between relief and motivational systems. Moreover, relief is a prototypical antecedent of counterfactual emotions, which involve specific cognitive processes compared to factual or mere anticipatory emotions. Practically, relief may be an important motivator of addictive and phobic behaviors, self destructive behaviors, and social influence. In the present paper, we will first provide a review of conflicting conceptualizations of relief. We will then present an integrative relief model (IRMO) that aims at resolving existing theoretical conflicts. We then review evidence relevant to distinctive predictions regarding the moderating role of various procedural features of relief situations. We conclude that our integrated model results in a better understanding of existing evidence on the affective and motivational underpinnings of relief, but that further evidence is needed to come to a more comprehensive evaluation of the viability of IRMO.

Neurocognitive impairment in HIV-infected individuals with previous syphilis

Cognitive impairment is common in HIV-infected individuals, as is syphilis. Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis, invades the central nervous system early in disease. We hypothesized that HIV-infected patients with a history of syphilis or neurosyphilis would have more cognitive impairment than HIV-infected individuals without these infections. Eighty-two of 1574 enrollees in CHARTER, a prospective, observational study, had reactive serum rapid plasma reagin (RPR) tests. They were matched to 84 controls with non-reactive RPR by age, gender, ethnicity and HIV risk factor. Participants underwent comprehensive neuropsychological (NP) evaluations. RPR results were confirmed and serum fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption (FTA-ABS) test reactivity determined at a central laboratory. Sera from 101 of 166 participants were FTA-ABS reactive, indicating past or current syphilis. Among the 136 individuals without confounding conditions, compared with patients who had never had syphilis, those with prior syphilis had a greater number of impaired NP test domains (1.90 SD [1.77] versus 1.25 [1.52], P = 0.03), a higher global deficit score (0.47 [0.46] versus 0.31 [0.33], P = 0.03), and more were impaired in the NP learning domain (36 [42.9%] of 84 versus 13 [25.0%] of 52, P = 0.04). These effects of prior syphilis remained after controlling for education and premorbid intelligence.

On the Nature of Automatically Triggered Approach–Avoidance Behavior

Theory suggests that stimulus evaluations automatically evoke approach–avoidance behavior. However, the extent to which approach–avoidance behavior is triggered automatically is not yet clear. Furthermore, the nature of automatically triggered approach–avoidance behavior is controversial. We review research on two views on the type of approach–avoidance behavior that is triggered automatically (arm flexion/extension, distance change). Present evidence supports the distance-change view and corroborates the notion of an automatic pathway from evaluation to distance-change behavior. We discuss underlying mechanisms (direct stimulus–response links, outcome anticipations, goals) as well as implications regarding the flexibility of the evaluation–behavior link.

Approach Does Not Equal Approach

There is inconsistent evidence as to whether angry faces evoke approach or avoidance tendencies. The present research sought to resolve this debate. We suggest that approach–avoidance movements can serve various goals (e.g., affiliation, aggression). Furthermore, we assume that these goals determine the effect of angry faces on approach–avoidance tendencies. In particular, angry faces communicate aggressive intentions and may therefore evoke aggressive tendencies in the perceiver. Thus, angry faces should trigger approach only when it serves aggression but not when it serves affiliation. Three studies showed that angry faces facilitated approach, when the behavior was represented as aggressive approach, but not when it was represented as peaceful approach. Furthermore, when approach was represented as peaceful approach and, hence, aggression was not an available option, angry faces facilitated avoidance. In sum, angry faces can evoke approach or avoidance, depending on the goals associated with these behaviors.

Multiple mating but not recombination causes quantitative increase in offspring genetic diversity for varying genetic architectures

Explaining the evolution of sex and recombination is particularly intriguing for some species of eusocial insects because they display exceptionally high mating frequencies and genomic recombination rates. Explanations for both phenomena are based on the notion that both increase colony genetic diversity, with demonstrated benefits for colony disease resistance and division of labor. However, the relative contributions of mating number and recombination rate to colony genetic diversity have never been simultaneously assessed. Our study simulates colonies, assuming different mating numbers, recombination rates, and genetic architectures, to assess their worker genotypic diversity. The number of loci has a strong negative effect on genotypic diversity when the allelic effects are inversely scaled to locus number. In contrast, dominance, epistasis, lethal effects, or limiting the allelic diversity at each locus does not significantly affect the model outcomes. Mating number increases colony genotypic variance and lowers variation among colonies with quickly diminishing returns. Genomic recombination rate does not affect intra- and inter-colonial genotypic variance, regardless of mating frequency and genetic architecture. Recombination slightly increases the genotypic range of colonies and more strongly the number of workers with unique allele combinations across all loci. Overall, our study contradicts the argument that the exceptionally high recombination rates cause a quantitative increase in offspring genotypic diversity across one generation. Alternative explanations for the evolution of high recombination rates in social insects are therefore needed. Short-term benefits are central to most explanations of the evolution of multiple mating and high recombination rates in social insects but our results also apply to other species.

Phasic affective modulation of semantic priming

The present research demonstrates that very brief variations in affect, being around 1 s in length and changing from trial to trial independently from semantic relatedness of primes and targets, modulate the amount of semantic priming. Implementing consonant and dissonant chords (Experiments 1 and 5), naturalistic sounds (Experiment 2), and visual facial primes (Experiment 3) in an (in)direct semantic priming paradigm, as well as brief facial feedback in a summative priming paradigm (Experiment 4), yielded increased priming effects under brief positive compared to negative affect. Furthermore, this modulation took place on the level of semantic spreading rather than on strategic mechanisms (Experiment 5). Alternative explanations such as distraction, motivation, arousal, and cognitive tuning could be ruled out. This phasic affective modulation constitutes a mechanism overlooked thus far that may contaminate priming effects in all priming paradigms that involve affective stimuli. Furthermore, this mechanism provides a novel explanation for the observation that priming effects are usually larger for positive than for negative stimuli. Finally, it has important implications for linguistic research, by suggesting that association norms may be biased for affective words.

Phasic Affective Modulation of Creativity

Thus far, it has been shown that positive compared to negative mood increases creativity, for instance, as measured by performance in the remote associate task, where participants are asked to find the common remote associate for three clue words (e.g., RABBIT CLOUD MILK solution word WHITE). The present experiments show that very brief variations in affect, lasting for only a few seconds and changing from trial to trial within participants, are sufficient to modulate creativity in that task, presumably by modulating the breadth of semantic spread. Using word valence of remote associates themselves (Experiment 1), and consonant and dissonant chords (Experiment 2) as affect inductions, it was observed that brief positive compared to negative affect increased creative performance. This evidence extends the affect-modulation hypothesis to a temporal micro-level.

No fear, no panic: probing negation as a means for emotion regulation

This electroencephalographic study investigated if negating one's emotion results in paradoxical effects or leads to effective emotional downregulation. Healthy participants were asked to downregulate their emotions to happy and fearful faces by using negated emotional cue words (e.g., no fun, no fear). Cue words were congruent with the emotion depicted in the face and presented prior to each face. Stimuli were presented in blocks of happy and fearful faces. Blocks of passive stimulus viewing served as control condition. Active regulation reduced amplitudes of early event-related brain potentials (early posterior negativity, but not N170) and the late positive potential for fearful faces. A fronto-central negativity peaking at about 250 ms after target face onset showed larger amplitude modulations during downregulation of fearful and happy faces. Behaviorally, negating was more associated with reappraisal than with suppression. Our results suggest that in an emotional context, negation processing could be quite effective for emotional downregulation but that its effects depend on the type of the negated emotion (pleasant vs unpleasant). Results are discussed in the context of dual process models of cognition and emotion regulation.

Being moved: valence activates approach-avoidance behavior independently of evaluation and approach-avoidance intentions

Theories from diverse areas of psychology assume that affective stimuli facilitate approach and avoidance behavior because they elicit motivational orientations that prepare the organism for appropriate responses. Recent evidence casts serious doubt on this assumption. Instead of motivational orientations, evaluative-coding mechanisms may be responsible for the effect of stimulus valence on approach-avoidance responses. Three studies tested contrasting predictions derived from these two accounts. Results supported motivational theories, as stimulus valence facilitated compatible approach-avoidance responses even though participants had no intention to approach or to avoid the stimuli, and the valence of the response labels was dissociated from the approach and avoidance movements (Study 1). Stimulus valence also facilitated compatible approach-avoidance responses when participants were not required to process the valence of the stimuli (Studies 2a and 2b). These findings are at odds with the evaluative-coding account and support the notion of a unique, automatic link between the perception of valence and approach-avoidance behavior.

Fast and Fragile

Numerous studies suggest that processing verbal materials containing negations slows down cognition and makes it more error-prone. This suggests that processing negations affords relatively nonautomatic processes. The present research studied the role of two automaticity features (processing speed and resource dependency) for negation processing. In three experiments, we tested the impact of verbal negations on affective priming effects in the Affect Misattribution Paradigm. Going beyond previous work, the results indicate that negations can be processed unintentionally and quickly (Experiments 1 and 2). In Experiment 3, negations failed to qualify affective priming effects when participants’ working memory was taxed by memorizing an eight-digit number. In sum, the experiments suggest that negations can be processed unintentionally, very quickly, but that they rely on working-memory resources.

Response Interference as a Mechanism Underlying Implicit Measures

Over the last decade, implicit measures of mental associations (e.g., Implicit Association Test, sequential priming) have become increasingly popular in many areas of psychological research. Even though successful applications provide preliminary support for the validity of these measures, their underlying mechanisms are still controversial. The present article addresses the role of a particular mechanism that is hypothesized to mediate the influence of activated associations on task performance in many implicit measures: response interference (RI). Based on a review of relevant evidence, we argue that RI effects in implicit measures depend on participants’ attention to association-relevant stimulus features, which in turn can influence the reliability and the construct validity of these measures. Drawing on a moderated-mediation model (MMM) of task performance in RI paradigms, we provide several suggestions on how to address these problems in research using implicit measures.

Significance testing of a cluster of multivariate binary variables: comparison of the tripartite T index to three common similarity measures

Similarity measures quantify resemblance between pairs of items when each consists of a pattern of two-state (eg, presence versus absence) variables. Numerous similarity measures, many of which are straightforward to calculate and interpret, have been developed and characterized. Methods for testing if items within a specified cluster are significantly more similar to each other than to items outside the cluster have not been extensively developed for binary responses, but a permutation test procedure using a measure of distinctness is available to do this. We compare three well known similarity measures, the Dice, Jaccard and simple matching coefficients, with the more complex tripartite T similarity index recently proposed by Tulloss. Each measure is used in significance tests of whether hypothesized subsets of items are legitimately grouped for resemblance. Theoretically derived measures reflecting diverse scenarios found in medical research and data from neuropsychological research illustrate the methods. Results for the tripartite T measure were comparable to the other methods in some settings, and essentially the same as the Dice coefficient overall when compared theoretically and on the same clinical data. Some shortcomings with the Tulloss algorithm were found and limit the usefulness of the tripartite T index in medical applications.

At the boundaries of automaticity: Negation as reflective operation

The present research investigated whether automatic social-cognitive skills are based on the same representations and processes as their controlled counterparts. Using the cognitive task of negating valence, the authors demonstrate that enhanced practice in negating the valence of a stimulus can lead to changes in the underlying associative representation. However, procedural, rule-based components of negations were generally unaffected by practice (Experiments 1-3). Moreover, negations of evaluative stimuli did not influence automatic evaluative responses to these stimuli, unless the negation was included in the associative representation of a stimulus (Experiments 4-6). These results suggest that some practice-related skill improvements are limited to conditions in which a general procedure can be substituted by the retrieval of results of previous applications from associative memory. Implications for research on automaticity and social cognition are discussed.

Contextual influences on implicit evaluation: a test of additive versus contrastive effects of evaluative context stimuli in affective priming

Drawing on two alternative accounts of the affective priming effect (spreading activation vs. response interference), the present research investigated the underlying processes of how evaluative context stimuli influence implicit evaluations in the affective priming task. Employing two sequentially presented prime stimuli (rather than a single prime), two experiments showed that affective priming effects elicited by a given prime stimulus were more pronounced when this stimulus was preceded by a context prime of the opposite valence than when it was preceded by a context prime of the same valence. This effect consistently emerged for pictures (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2) as prime stimuli. These results suggest that the impact of evaluative context stimuli on implicit evaluations is mediated by contrast effects in the attention to evaluative information rather than by additive effects in the activation of evaluative information in associative memory.

A phase 2 clinical trial of metformin as a treatment for non-diabetic paediatric non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

BACKGROUND

Children with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis are insulin-resistant and metformin has been proposed as a potential therapy. However, paediatric safety and efficacy data are absent.

AIM

To test the hypothesis that metformin therapy will safely improve markers of liver disease in paediatric non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.

METHODS

Single-arm open-label pilot study of metformin 500 mg twice daily for 24 weeks in non-diabetic children with biopsy-proven non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.

RESULTS

Ten obese children (mean body mass index 30.4) enrolled and completed the trial. Mean alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) improved significantly (P < 0.01) from baseline (184, 114 U/L) to end of treatment (98, 68 U/L). Alanine aminotransferase normalized in 40% and AST normalized in 50% of subjects. Children demonstrated significant improvements in liver fat measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (30-23%, P < 0.01); insulin sensitivity measured by quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (0.294-0.310, P < 0.05); and quality of life measured by pediatric quality of life inventory 4.0 (69-81, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

Open-label treatment with metformin for 24 weeks was notable for improvement in liver chemistry, liver fat, insulin sensitivity and quality of life. A large randomized-controlled trial is needed to definitively determine the efficacy of metformin for paediatric non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.

Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior

This article describes a 2-systems model that explains social behavior as a joint function of reflective and impulsive processes. In particular, it is assumed that social behavior is controlled by 2 interacting systems that follow different operating principles. The reflective system generates behavioral decisions that are based on knowledge about facts and values, whereas the impulsive system elicits behavior through associative links and motivational orientations. The proposed model describes how the 2 systems interact at various stages of processing, and how their outputs may determine behavior in a synergistic or antagonistic fashion. It extends previous models by integrating motivational components that allow more precise predictions of behavior. The implications of this reflective-impulsive model are applied to various phenomena from social psychology and beyond. Extending previous dual-process accounts, this model is not limited to specific domains of mental functioning and attempts to integrate cognitive, motivational, and behavioral mechanisms.