What is learned from repeated pairings? On the scope and generalizability of evaluative conditioning.

Abstract

The investigation of evaluative conditioning (EC) has been mainly concerned with the conditioning of individual stimuli. Namely, a specific conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with a positive or negative unconditioned stimulus and consequently acquires the valence of the unconditioned stimulus. In the present article, we expand the notion of EC to CS cues (e.g., gender) as distinguished from CS objects (e.g., an individual). We developed a conditioning paradigm that allows for the simultaneous investigation of both types of EC effects, evaluative identity conditioning and evaluative cue conditioning. The experiments demonstrate that EC has the potential to change attitudes not only toward CS individuals but also toward CS cues. We applied this twofold approach to both impoverished and more complex learning environments, demonstrating that evaluative identity conditioning is dependent on stimulus complexity while evaluative cue conditioning depends on the complexity of the stimulus context. The findings have distinct implications for the generalization of EC effects as well as for the investigation of EC.

Generalization Effects in Evaluative Conditioning: Evidence for Attitude Transfer Effects from Single Exemplars to Social Categories

“…Moreover, significant generalization effects were obtained only for participants who had accurate (vs. inaccurate) CA. Different from Hütter et al (2013) , this research demonstrated generalization effects for stimuli that were not part of the conditioning procedure. However, generalization effects on the category itself were not investigated.…”

“… Hütter et al (2013) focused directly on the generalizability of EC effects. Specifically, they successfully distinguished evaluative identity conditioning (i.e., conditioning of an individual CS) from evaluative cue conditioning (i.e., conditioning of a cue representing a social category such as age or gender).…”

Evaluative conditioning of artificial grammars: Evidence that subjectively-unconscious structures bias affective evaluations of novel stimuli.

“…When members of one group were paired with negative (or positive) images, even previously-unseen creatures that had the same object on the head, were evaluated more negatively (or positively). Thus, this study has found evidence for generalization to new stimuli, but only when participants were aware of the contingencies (i.e., remembered accurately which group of creatures was associated with which valence; for similar results, see Hütter, Kutzner, &Fiedler, 2014, andTigges, 2019). In conclusion, generalization of EC effects to new stimuli seems possible, but the available evidence largely shows that generalization is dependent on awareness (contrast Olson & Fazio, 2006; see Glaser & Kuchenbrandt, 2017, for a discussion).…”

“…Using the present paradigm, participants might undergo an affective-priming task in which primes could be new strings that follow the positive or the negative grammar. Another approach would be to adopt process-dissociation methods, as those often used in AGL (e.g., Norman et al, 2016) and EC research (e.g., Hütter et al, 2014), and to test whether participants can voluntarily control the influence of the acquired structures.…”

Sensitivity to emotional scene content outside the focus of attention

“…An evaluative conditioning (EC) paradigm could overcome this limitation. In a typical EC task, a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus or CS) is repeatedly paired with a positive or negative unconditioned stimulus (US), as a consequence of which the CS acquires the valence of the US (see Hofmann, De Houwer, Perugini, Baeyens & Crombez, 2010;Hütter, Kutzner & Fiedler, 2014;Spruyt, Hermans, De Houwer & Eelen, 2004). In such a paradigm, the neutral scenes could serve either as the CS to be aversively or appetitively conditioned, or as no CS controls.…”