Incidental Attitude Formation via the Surveillance Task: A Preregistered Replication of the Olson and Fazio (2001) Study

Abstract

Evaluative conditioning is one of the most widely studied procedures for establishing and changing attitudes. The surveillance task is a highly cited evaluative-conditioning paradigm and one that is claimed to generate attitudes without awareness. The potential for evaluative-conditioning effects to occur without awareness continues to fuel conceptual, theoretical, and applied developments. Yet few published studies have used this task, and most are characterized by small samples and small effect sizes. We conducted a high-powered ( N = 1,478 adult participants), preregistered close replication of the original surveillance-task study (Olson & Fazio, 2001). We obtained evidence for a small evaluative-conditioning effect when “aware” participants were excluded using the original criterion—therefore replicating the original effect. However, no such effect emerged when three other awareness criteria were used. We suggest that there is a need for caution when using evidence from the surveillance-task effect to make theoretical and practical claims about “unaware” evaluative-conditioning effects.

The Role of Trait Inferences in Evaluative Conditioning

“…Future research should extend this line of research by examining the role of trait inferences in EC with different stimuli, contexts, and samples. Indeed, the observation that trait inferences can play a role in EC does not constitute that they play a role in all types of EC (e.g., in EC procedures which does not mention traits or cover stories: e.g., Moran et al, 2021;Olson & Fazio, 2001). Second, US content and validity effects were observed on only one self-report measure (liking ratings) and one automatic evaluation measure (the IAT).…”

“…Similarly, it is possible that the presentation of Belgium beers (CSs) with pictures of adults having fun in various ways (USs; Sweldens et al, 2010) leads participants to infer that the Belgium beers are fun and positive. Although there are also EC procedures that do not seem to promote trait inferences via instructions or biased selection of stimuli (e.g., Moran et al, 2021;Olson & Fazio, 2001), the frequent use of EC procedures that do promote trait inferences in this way suggests that trait inferences might have been crucial in many prior EC studies. Interestingly, however, no prior study has attempted to manipulate trait inferences to systematically investigate their potential role in EC effects.…”

A Review of Multisite Replication Projects in Social Psychology: Is It Viable to Sustain Any Confidence in Social Psychology’s Knowledge Base?

“…For Ghelfi et al (2020), the most important comparison was between the bitter-and neutral-beverage conditions, and that comparison was significant, although the sweet-beverage condition's results were radically different from the original and complicated the theoretical point. Findings by Moran et al (2021) and Vohs et al (2021) were significant or not depending on how many participants were excluded from analyses. Skorb et al (2020) tried three different protocols, of which only one provided a significant result, and that was after excluding over half the sample.…”

Unconscious integration: Current evidence for integrative processing under subliminal conditions

“…Awareness-related methodological concerns highlighted in subliminal studies, apply also (perhaps even more so) to studies assessing unconscious processing through implicit measures (Malejka et al, 2021;Shanks et al, 2021;Vadillo et al, 2016Vadillo et al, , 2020Vadillo et al, , 2022. For example, Olson and Fazio (2001) reported evaluative conditioning without contingency awareness, but Moran et al's (2021) multi-lab replication attempt found no effect when stricter awareness tests were used. Several co-authors involved in the replication further demonstrated that previous significant effects could be attributed to the inclusion of partially aware participants in the final sample (Kurdi et al, 2022).…”