Persuading the Implicit Mind: Changing Negative Implicit Evaluations With an 8-Minute Podcast

Abstract

Implicit evaluations can be malleable via reinterpretation of previously encountered evidence. Here, we report three studies ( N = 1,007) investigating the robustness of this updating modality using ecologically realistic materials. Participants were first introduced to a target who killed an endangered black rhino in Namibia. They then listened to a real podcast providing counterattitudinal information on the benefits of trophy hunting. The podcast resulted in considerable revisions of initially negative implicit evaluations toward positivity, consistently across implicit measures (affect misattribution procedures vs. implicit association test), samples (American students vs. nonstudents from various countries), study settings (lab vs. online), and the presence versus absence of a memory retrieval manipulation prompting reflection on participants’ views on trophy hunting. Taken together, these findings suggest that reinterpretation can shift implicit evaluations of even highly negative targets, including under conditions of external validity.

Implicit Person Memory: Domain-General and Domain-Specific Processes of Learning and Change 1

“…Such studies have included experiments probing the interplay of individual-level and category-level information (e.g., Cao & Banaji, 2016;Gawronski et al, 2003;McConnell et al, 2008;Rubinstein et al, 2018;Rubinstein & Jussim, 2019) and the effects of facial cues on implicit evaluation (e.g., Gawronski & Quinn, 2013;Shen et al, 2020). On the other hand, studies have also presented information to participants that was assumed to give rise to domain-specific processes of social reasoning: diagnostic information about a target's true moral character (e.g., Cone et al, 2019Cone et al, , 2021Cone & Ferguson, 2015) or information prompting participants to reinterpret a target's previously encountered behaviors (e.g., Kurdi et al, 2021b;Mann & Ferguson, 2015Olcaysoy Okten et al, 2019).…”

“…Research by Ferguson, Cone, Mann, and colleagues has investigated in detail two seemingly uniquely social forms of updating in implicit person memory: the first relying on diagnostic information (Cone et al, 2019(Cone et al, , 2021Cone & Ferguson, 2015) and the second on the reinterpretation of previously encountered behavioral information (Kurdi et al, 2021b;Mann et al, 2021;Mann & Ferguson, 2015.…”

Implicit person memory: Domain-general and domain-specific processes of learning and change

“…Such studies have included experiments probing the interplay of individual-level and categorylevel information (e.g., Cao & Banaji, 2016;Gawronski et al, 2003;McConnell et al, 2008;Rubinstein et al, 2018;Rubinstein & Jussim, 2019) and the effects of facial cues on implicit evaluation (e.g., Gawronski & Quinn, 2013;Shen et al, 2020). A second subset of studies have presented information to participants that was assumed to give rise to domain-specific processes of social reasoning: diagnostic information about a target's true moral character (e.g., Cone et al, 2019Cone et al, , 2021Cone & Ferguson, 2015) or information prompting participants to reinterpret a target's previously encountered behaviors (e.g., Kurdi et al, 2021a;Mann & Ferguson, 2015Olcaysoy Okten et al, 2019).…”

“…In these studies, unlike in most work on the updating of implicit evaluations, attitude change is not achieved by presenting entirely novel information about the target; rather, participants are prompted to reconsider the evaluative implications of already known information. For example, Kurdi et al (2021a) have shown that exposure to excerpts from a real-world podcast, containing a mix of positive and negative information, can lead to considerable updating of initially highly negative evaluations of a novel target. Furthermore, similar to the studies relying on diagnostic information reviewed above, the amount of updating was predicted by the extent to which participants found the novel counterattitudinal information persuasive.…”

“…Research by Ferguson, Cone, Mann, and colleagues has investigated in detail two seemingly uniquely social forms of updating in implicit person memory: the first relying on diagnostic information (Cone et al, 2019(Cone et al, , 2021Cone & Ferguson, 2015) and the second on the reinterpretation of previously encountered behavioral information (Kurdi et al, 2021a;Mann et al, 2021;Mann & Ferguson, 2015.…”