Evaluative conditioning

Abstract

Classical conditioning experiments are reviewed in which the dependent variables are subjective responses, typically involving the evaluation of stimulus materials. These experiments suggest that classical conditioning produces a positive or negative change in the evaluation of previously neutral stimuli. We re-interpret these studies as well as presenting data of our own to support the view that apparently disparate conditioning techniques have an underlying common mechanism — the elicitation and transfer of an evaluative response. We postulate that a subjective evaluative response, rather than implicit or explicit behaviour acts, carries the mechanism of conditioning. This leaves free the actual repertoire of responses (adaptive or maladaptive) in which the subject engages, and also suggests a way through the complex problem of how behaviour can be generalized outside clinical and laboratory situations. Subjective evauations are differentiated from states of pleasure (and hence from hedonism), attitude, emotions and approach—avoidance behaviour. The experiments reviewed are selected from the verbal, attitude and evaluative response conditioning literature, and they are used to shift attention from a model of classical conditioning in which the emphasis is on a specific motor or autonomic response as “the” UCR to one which substitutes a process of unmediated appraisal which we have called the evaluative response. The relevance of this formulation to behaviour theory and to behaviour therapy is discussed in relation to cognitively oriented models.