Previous studies have suggested that attitude conditioning is affected by deprivation-satiation (drive) operations. Deprivation of attitude-eliciting objects should make the objects (or words denoting the objects) more strongly elicit the attitude, and thus be more effective in conditioning attitudes to new stimuli. In the present study with 254 undergraduates, food words were considered to be attitude stimuli which through preexperimental conditioning (pairing with the type of food) had come to elicit positive attitude responses. Results support the hypothesis that a new stimulus paired with the attitude stimuli (food words) would come to elicit a positive attitude more strongly for Ss deprived of food than for Ss satiated on food. Relevance of the results for a general learning theory of attitudes and social interaction as well as for the study of the attitudinal and interpersonal function of language is discussed. (51 ref.)

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