Does an experimentally induced self-association elicit affective self-prioritisation?

Abstract

Self-relevant stimuli such as one's name and face have been demonstrated to influence information processing in both the cognitive and affective domains. It has been observed that recently self-associated stimuli can also influence cognition, but their impact on affect has not been tested yet. In the current study (N = 107), we test whether recently self-associated stimuli yield an affective bias and compare the size of the effect with that of familiar self-associated stimuli. A Recoding-Free Implicit Association Test (IAT-RF) presenting self-associated, neutral object-associated, positive, and negative stimuli was used with two groups: one which categorised familiar words as self- and neutral object-associated stimuli, and a second which categorised recently self- and neutral object-associated geometric shapes. In both cases, response times were faster for congruent trials, which mapped response keys as "positive/self" and "negative/neutral object," than for incongruent trials which mapped response keys as "positive/neutral object" and "negative/self." The size of the effect yielded by familiar and new self-associated stimuli did not differ. This indicates that experimentally induced self-association can immediately yield an affective bias in favour of the self-associated stimulus.