TY - JOUR
T1 - The Role of Trait Inferences in Evaluative Conditioning
AU - Moran, Tal
AU - Hughes, Sean
AU - van Dessel, Pieter
AU - de Houwer, Jan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/1/25
Y1 - 2022/1/25
N2 - Evaluative Conditioning (EC) effect is a change in evaluative responding to a neutral stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a valenced stimulus (US). Traditionally, EC effects are viewed as fundamentally different from persuasion effects. Inspired by a propositional perspective to EC, four studies (N = 1,284) tested if, like persuasion effects, EC effects can also be driven by trait inferences. Experiments 1-2 found that promoting trait inferences (by pairing people with trait words rather than nouns) increased EC effects. Experiments 3-4 found that undermining trait inferences (by questioning the validity of those inferences) decreased EC effects. In all experiments, however, EC effects were still significant when trait inferences were invalid. Taken together, our findings (a) suggest that trait inferences can play an important role in EC effects, (b) constrain theoretical models of EC, and (c) have important implications for applied EC interventions.
AB - Evaluative Conditioning (EC) effect is a change in evaluative responding to a neutral stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a valenced stimulus (US). Traditionally, EC effects are viewed as fundamentally different from persuasion effects. Inspired by a propositional perspective to EC, four studies (N = 1,284) tested if, like persuasion effects, EC effects can also be driven by trait inferences. Experiments 1-2 found that promoting trait inferences (by pairing people with trait words rather than nouns) increased EC effects. Experiments 3-4 found that undermining trait inferences (by questioning the validity of those inferences) decreased EC effects. In all experiments, however, EC effects were still significant when trait inferences were invalid. Taken together, our findings (a) suggest that trait inferences can play an important role in EC effects, (b) constrain theoretical models of EC, and (c) have important implications for applied EC interventions.
KW - Automatic evaluation
KW - Evaluative conditioning
KW - Propositional models
KW - Trait inference
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85125626127&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1525/collabra.31738
DO - 10.1525/collabra.31738
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85125626127
SN - 2474-7394
VL - 8
JO - Collabra: Psychology
JF - Collabra: Psychology
IS - 1
M1 - 31738
ER -