How do explicit and implicit evaluations shift? A preregistered meta-analysis of the effects of co-occurrence and relational information.

Abstract

Based on 660 effect sizes obtained from 23,255 adult participants across 51 reports of experimental studies, this meta-analysis investigates whether and when explicit (self-reported) and implicit (indirectly revealed) evaluations reflect relational information (how stimuli are related to each other) over and above cooccurrence information (the fact that stimuli have been paired with each other). Using a mixed-effects metaregression, relational information was found to dominate over contradictory co-occurrence information in shifting both explicit (mean Hedges' g = 0.97, 95% CI [0.89, 1.05], 95% PI [0.24, 1.70]) and implicit evaluations (g = 0.27, 95% CI [0.19, 0.35], 95% PI [−0.46, 1.00]). However, considerable heterogeneity in relational effects on implicit evaluation made moderator analyses necessary. Implicit evaluations were particularly sensitive to relational information (a) in between-participant (rather than within-participant) designs; when (b) co-occurrence information was held constant (rather than manipulated); (c) targets were novel (rather than known); implicit evaluations were measured (d) first (rather than last) and (e) using an affect misattribution procedure (rather than an Implicit Association Test or evaluative priming task); and (f) relational and co-occurrence information were presented in temporal proximity (rather than far apart in time). Overall, the present findings suggest that both implicit and explicit evaluations emerge from a combination of co-occurrence information and relational information, with relational information usually playing the dominant role. Critically, variability in these effects highlights a need to refocus attention from existence proof demonstrations toward theoretical and empirical work on the determinants and boundary conditions of the influences of co-occurrence and relational information on explicit and implicit evaluations.

Oppressed Groups Engender Implicit Positivity: Seven Demonstrations Using Novel and Familiar Targets

“…First, it suggests that prosocial (positive) responses to victims of even extreme suffering need not require effortful deliberation but instead can emerge spontaneously and unintentionally. Second, most relevant past studies-even ones involving novel targets and explicit labeling of stimulus relations-have achieved only attenuations of implicit negativity using relational information (Kurdi et al, 2022); here, we demonstrated five instances of complete reversal into positivity. Finally, following decades of associative theorizing (Rydell & McConnell, 2006;Strack & Deutsch, 2004), this finding provides compelling support for a "new view" on which implicit evaluations reflect ubiquitous influences of high-level reasoning about causality and blameworthiness (De Houwer, 2014).…”

“…Such tests have the potential to provide constraints on theorizing about social cognitive processes and are directly informative with respect to the evaluative consequences of awareness raising focused on past oppression. Notably, relevant tests involving familiar targets are almost entirely missing from the literature and, in the rare cases that they have been conducted, have produced mixed results at best (Kurdi et al, 2022). Indeed, the results obtained using fictitious groups may not generalize to well-known targets because well-rehearsed attitudes are more difficult to change than newly established ones (Krosnick & Petty, 1995).…”

“…Notably, emerging evidence suggests that implicit evaluations can incorporate information going beyond simple stimulus pairings (Cone et al, 2017; De Houwer, 2014; Kurdi et al, 2022). For example, Zanon et al (2014) found that implicit evaluations of nonwords (e.g., LOKANTA) reflected not merely the valence of the English words with which they had been paired (e.g., HAPPY) but also the relationship that the two stimuli shared.…”

“…By contrast, historical narratives do not come with express instructions to associate oppressed groups with the opposite of the narrative’s negative valence. Second, implicit evaluations are less likely to reflect relational information (e.g., perpetrator vs. victim) when the valence of the accompanying information is highly negative (Kurdi et al, 2022), which further raises the specter of ironic effects. Thus, Studies 1 and 2 provide a stringent proof-of-concept test of whether, contrary to associative ideas, highly negative oppression-related narratives can create implicit positivity toward novel groups.…”

Stop me if you've heard this one before: The Chomskyan hammer and the Skinnerian nail

“…Leading propositional theorists continue to uncover effects more naturally explained by nonpropositional processes, or at least uneasily assimilated into prevailing propositional theories (e.g., Van Dessel, De Houwer, Gast, Roets, & Smith, 2020; see also Byrd, 2021). As a recent meta-analysis by Kurdi, Morehouse, and Dunham (2023, p. 1) explains, no current theory is well-poised to predict and explain the disorienting array of findings, and the time for “existence proof demonstrations” of propositional effects has passed. Yet in lieu of synthesizing the disarray, the target article consists in just such a grab bag of existence proofs, trumpeting all and only recent successes for propositional approaches – while ignoring evidence of their shortcomings and boundary conditions, and deferring long-standing concerns about how LoTs are implemented in the brain and integrated with other processes.…”