The conditioning of negative attitudes to unfamiliar items of information

Abstract

The present studies attempted to condition negative attitudes toward novel information by pairing unfamiliar questions with the answer “false” in a training questionnaire. Results were as follows: (a) significant conditioning was obtained in 4 out of 5 experiments; (b) conditioning was independent of an atmosphere effect in the training series; (c) conditioning varied inversely with amount of reinforcement; (d) under conditions that permitted the response “uncertain,” as well as “true” or “false,” significant conditioning was obtained; (e) awareness was related to significantly enhanced performance, but did not always accompany significant conditioning; and, (f) no significant conditioning occurred when equal numbers of “true” and “false” items appeared in the conditioning series.