How attitudes guide memory-based judgments: A two-process model

Abstract

Two experiments investigate the process whereby attitudes bias memory-based judgments such as trait ratings in the direction of affective consistency. It is assumed that both the attitude toward the attitude object to be judged as well as the affective connotation of the trait, event, or quality with respect to which the attitude object is to be evaluated are activated automatically and in addition, automatically compared for affective consistency with the result of a first affirmative or negative response tendency. In a grammatical judgment task involving pairs of persons' names and trait adjectives, responding “correct” was facilitated for affectively consistent pairs relative to inconsistent pairs, whereas the opposite effect was observed when the grammatical judgment required subjects of a second group to respond “false” to these same pairs. In the second experiment, we compared ratings obtained by two groups, one that worked under time pressure, and one where subjects were allowed as much time per judgment as desired. Ratings under time pressure exhibited stronger bias in the direction of affective consistency, but did not contain larger amounts of unsystematic errors. The results suggest that an affirmative or negative first response tendency is automatically extracted on the basis of the affective aspects of the judgmental situation and is spontaneously used as an a priori hypothesis for the adequate response.