Evaluative Priming Research Articles

The Mere Exposure Instruction Effect.

The mere exposure effect refers to the well-established finding that people evaluate a stimulus more positively after repeated exposure to that stimulus. We investigated whether a change in stimulus evaluation can occur also when participants are not repeatedly exposed to a stimulus, but are merely instructed that one stimulus will occur frequently and another stimulus will occur infrequently. We report seven experiments showing that (1) mere exposure instructions influence implicit stimulus evaluations as measured with an Implicit Association Test (IAT), personalized Implicit Association Test (pIAT), or Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), but not with an Evaluative Priming Task (EPT), (2) mere exposure instructions influence explicit evaluations, and (3) the instruction effect depends on participants' memory of which stimulus will be presented more frequently. We discuss how these findings inform us about the boundary conditions of mere exposure instruction effects, as well as the mental processes that underlie mere exposure and mere exposure instruction effects.

Preferences for cervical cancer screening: The role of implicit associations

ObjectivesImplicit associations influence behaviour, but their impact on cancer screening intentions is unknown. MethodsWe assessed implicit associations with cervical cancer screening using an evaluative priming task. Participants were shown primes (‘Pap test’, neutral or non-word) followed by positive or negative target words. The test is based on the assumption that response times are shorter if primes and targets are strongly associated in the participant's mind. The Dutch screening program targets women aged 30–60, 226 of them completed online assessments twice. Prior to the second assessment participants were randomized to reading versus not reading the leaflet about the cervical screening program. ResultsAfter controlling for knowledge and screen history, response times for ‘Pap test’ no longer differed between positive and negative targets. Implicit associations were not correlated with explicit attitudes or screening intentions. Reading the screening leaflet resulted in improved knowledge levels (p<0.001), but implicit associations, explicit attitudes, and screening intentions remained similar. ConclusionCervical cancer screening intentions were related to explicit attitudes, but not to implicit associations. The screening leaflet did not affect screening intentions. Practice implicationsWe recommend achieving a deepened interest in the screening program among risk groups, e.g. by adapting the information leaflet.

Negativity bias and instability in spontaneous and deliberate evaluations of others: The role of borderline personality features

This study tested the hypotheses that borderline personality (BP) features are characterized by a negativity bias and instability in spontaneous and deliberate evaluations of others. Undergraduate women (N = 204) watched two movie clips depicting either positive or negative conjugal interactions. Spontaneous and deliberate evaluations of the male character were assessed after each clip with an Evaluative Priming Task and a self-report measure, respectively. Participants with high BP features showed unstable spontaneous evaluations. Results revealed a non-significant trend toward more negative spontaneous evaluations after the negative clip and less positive and more negative deliberate evaluations after watching the positive clip first relative to participants with low BP features. These results provide preliminary evidence that impression formation in borderline personality may be characterized by negative and unstable evaluations that are shaped at least in part at earlier processing stages.

The effect of the validity of co‐occurrence on automatic and deliberate evaluations

AbstractCo‐occurrence of an object and affective stimuli does not always mean that the object and the stimuli are the same valence (e.g., false accusations that Richard is a crook). Contemporary theory posits that information about the (in)validity of co‐occurrence has stronger influence on deliberate than automatic evaluation. However, available evidence supports that hypothesis only when the (in)validity information is delayed. Further, the existing evidence is open to alternative methodological accounts. In six high‐powered experiments (total N = 1750), we modified previous procedures to minimize alternative explanations and examine whether delayed (in)validity information has a discrepant effect on automatic versus deliberate evaluation. Casting doubt on the generality of the hypothesis, we found more sensitivity of deliberate than automatic evaluation to delayed validity information only when automatic evaluation was measured with the Implicit Association Test and not with the evaluative priming task or the affective misattribution procedure.

Dynamic Tuning of Evaluations: Implicit Racial Attitudes Are Sensitive to Incentives for Intergroup Cooperation

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that implicit preferences for racial ingroup members are reduced when external mechanisms are available to incentivize cooperation between individuals. Study 1 varied the presence (vs. absence) of a third-party punisher in a series of upcoming cross-group trust games. Studies 2 and 3 held the presence of a punisher constant, but varied the punisher's likely effectiveness at incentivizing cooperation by manipulating the punisher's group membership or whether the punisher's presence was common knowledge. The results of S1 and S2 showed that anticipating an effective third party punisher reduced racial bias on an intervening evaluative priming measure. S3 was more equivocal, but overall (and as indexed by a multilevel meta-analysis) the findings across studies provide evidence for situational tuning of rapid evaluative responses as a function of contextually variable cooperative affordances.

Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially.

Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end, we investigated the modulation of masked pictorial vs verbal priming by previously activated perceptual vs semantic task sets and assessed the electrophysiological correlates of priming using event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects showed a differential modulation of pictorial and verbal subliminal priming by previously activated task sets: Pictorial priming was only observed during the perceptual but not during the semantic task set. Verbal priming, in contrast, was found when either task set was activated. Furthermore, only verbal priming was associated with a modulation of the N400 ERP component, an index of semantic processing, whereas a priming-related modulation of earlier ERPs, indexing visuo-motor S-R activation, was found for both picture and words. The results thus demonstrate that different neuro-cognitive processes contribute to unconscious evaluative priming depending on the stimulus format.

To accurately estimate implicit influences on health behavior, accurately estimate explicit influences.

This project considered how inattention to left-out variable error and measurement correspondence in the assessment of explicit measures can result in upwardly biased estimates of the predictive utility of implicit measures designed to predict health behaviors. A pilot study (n = 96) used a cross-sectional design to predict beer consumption and a main study (n = 132) used a longitudinal design to predict binge drinking. In each study, a battery of 4 implicit inventories (implicit association test, personalized implicit association test, evaluative priming, and attribution misattribution paradigm) and a battery of correspondent explicit measures (based on the Reasoned Action Model and the Prototype Willingness Model) were administered to college youth. The Implicit Association Test and evaluative priming measures were not predictive of alcohol consumption in either study, but the personalized implicit association test (PIAT) and affective misattribution paradigm (AMP) accounted for between 5% and 12% in behavioral criteria, when analyzed in isolation or after explicit measures were statistically controlled following measurement conventions in this research domain. When implicit measures were folded into a structural equation model derived from the Reasoned Action and Prototype Willingness Models, The PIAT was no longer a significant predictor of behavior and the AMP resulted in a 1%-2% incremental increase in accounted for variance. Left-out variable error and measurement correspondence are core principles that need to be considered when modeling the relative contributions of implicit and explicit constructs in the prediction of health behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record

Just say no! (and mean it): Meaningful negation as a tool to modify automatic racial attitudes

The present research compared the effectiveness of meaningful negation—“That’s wrong”—and simple negation—“No”—to alter automatic prejudice. Participants were trained to negate prejudice-consistent or prejudice-inconsistent information, using either simple or meaningful negation, and completed an evaluative priming measure of racial prejudice before and after training. No significant changes in automatic prejudice in the simple negation conditions emerged. In contrast, those trained to negate prejudice-consistent information in a more meaningful way showed a significant decrease in automatic prejudice, whereas those trained to negate prejudice-inconsistent information meaningfully showed a significant increase. Study 2 revealed that these effects were driven by participants high in their motivation to control prejudiced reactions (MCPR), as they demonstrated the greatest changes in automatic prejudice following training. Contrary to research suggesting negation training is an ineffective means to reduce automatic racial prejudice, the present research suggests negation can be effective when the negation is meaningful.

Can We Reduce Our Implicit Prejudice Toward Persons with Disability? The Challenge of Meditation

The present research further extends recent data revealing implicit attitude towards persons with disability, with the aim to explore if meditation practice can reduce automatic mental processes initiating prejudice. Forty adult experienced meditators and 34 meditation-naïve individuals performed an evaluative priming task. None of them presented any disability. Results show important discrepancies between control and meditation practicing participants: subliminal disability-priming inhibited evaluation of positive words and facilitated evaluation of negative words in the control group, thus revealing the presence of an implicit prejudice toward people with disability. In the meditator group, a quite different pattern of results emerged: disability-priming did not affect the evaluation of words, whether positive or negative. These findings suggest that meditation practice could deter automatised categorisation. They provide a hopeful message in the limited current armamentarium for decreasing negative attitudes towards persons with disability.

Implicit stereotyping against people with disability

Focusing on the two fundamental dimensions underlying stereotype content (warmth/competence), the major aim of the present research was to test implicit stereotyping toward persons with disability. We hypothesized that persons with disability are associated with less warmth than persons without disability and with less competence, especially when a competence-relevant context is activated (work context). Three experimental studies were conducted using two different priming paradigms: conceptual priming (Study 1) and evaluative priming (Studies 2 and 3). In Study 3, context (work vs. control) was introduced as an additional factor. Our results showed that persons with disability were systematically associated with less warmth than persons without disability, and with less competence when priming a work context. These results provide a more comprehensive understanding of discriminatory behaviors toward people with disability, despite legislation promoting equal rights.

Evaluative priming reveals dissociable effects of cognitive versus physiological anxiety on action monitoring.

Performance monitoring enables the rapid detection of mismatches between goals or intentions and actions, as well as subsequent behavioral adjustment by means of enhanced attention control. These processes are not encapsulated, but they are readily influenced by affective or motivational variables, including negative affect. Here we tested the prediction that worry, the cognitive component of anxiety, and arousal, its physiological counterpart, can each influence specific processes during performance monitoring. In 2 experiments, participants were asked to discriminate the valence of emotional words that were preceded by either correct (good) or incorrect (bad) actions, serving as primes in a standard evaluative priming procedure. In Experiment 1 (n = 36) we examined the influence of trait worry and arousal. Additionally, we included a face priming task to examine the specificity of this effect. Stepwise linear regression analyses showed that increased worry, but not arousal, weakened the evaluative priming effect and therefore the rapid and automatic processing of actions as good or bad. By contrast, arousal, but not worry, increased posterror slowing. In Experiment 2 (n = 30) state worry was induced using an anagram task. Effects of worry on action monitoring were trait but not state dependent, and only evidenced when actions were directly used as primes. These results suggest a double dissociation between worry and arousal during performance monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record

Relational integrativity of prime-target pairs moderates congruity effects in evaluative priming.

In evaluative priming, positive or negative primes facilitate reactions to targets that share the same valence. While this effect is commonly explained as reflecting invariant structures in semantic long-term memory or in the sensorimotor system, the present research highlights the role of integrativity in evaluative priming. Integrativity refers to the ease of integrating two concepts into a new meaningful compound representation. In extended material tests using paired comparisons from two pools of positive and negative words, we show that evaluative congruity is highly correlated with integrativity. Therefore, in most priming studies, congruity and integrativity are strongly confounded. When both aspects are disentangled by manipulating congruity and integrativity orthogonally, three priming experiments show that evaluative-priming effects were confined to integrative prime-target pairs. No facilitation of prime-congruent targets was obtained for non-integrative stimuli. These findings are discussed from a broader perspective on priming conceived as flexible, context-dependent, and serving a generative adaptation function.

Preservice Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion and Toward Students with Special Educational Needs from Different Ethnic Backgrounds

Drawing on social cognition frameworks, we experimentally examined preservice teachers' implicit attitudes toward students with special educational needs (SEN) from different ethnic backgrounds and preservice teachers' explicit attitudes toward inclusive education. Preservice teachers (N = 46) completed an evaluative priming task and questionnaires. Results showed indifferent implicit attitudes toward students with SEN with immigrant backgrounds and positive implicit attitudes toward those without immigrant backgrounds. Furthermore, participants reported a high motivation to act without prejudice toward minorities but held less favorable explicit attitudes toward inclusion of students with SEN, especially students with behavioral problems. Differential patterns of implicit and explicit evaluations could bias teachers' interactions with students. Findings are discussed with respect to implications for educational practice and research.

Higher order influences on evaluative priming: Processing styles moderate congruity effects

ABSTRACTA growing body of research challenges the automaticity of evaluative priming (EP). The present research adds to this literature by suggesting that EP is sensitive to processing styles. We relied on previous research showing that EP is determined by the extent to which the prime and the target events on a given trial are processed as a unified compound. Here, we further hypothesised that processing styles encouraging the inclusion of the prime to the target episode support congruity effects, whereas processing styles that enhance the exclusion of the prime from the target episode interrupt (or reverse) these effects. In Experiment 1, a preceding similarity search task produced a congruity effect, whereas a dissimilarity search task eliminated and (non-significantly) reversed this effect. In Experiments 2 and 3, we replicated and extended these findings using a global/local processing manipulation. Overall, these findings confirm that EP is flexible, open to top-down influences and strategic regulation.

Something (important) is out there! Effects of prime arousal and location on evaluative priming

The ability of an organism to rapidly process parafoveal information to identify motivationally significant stimuli is important for survival. The evaluative priming paradigm is useful for examining whether evaluation of hostile/hospitable stimuli in the parafovea has occurred. Three evaluative priming experiments that varied the valence and arousal of prime stimuli were conducted. In the first experiment, primes were presented foveally and prime arousal did not moderate the standard evaluative priming effect (i.e., faster responses when prime and target valence matched). In the next two experiments, primes were presented parafoveally and prime arousal moderated evaluative priming such that priming was greater for high than low arousing primes. These findings are aligned with dual competition models positing that sensory and response systems compete for limited resources during emotional processing. Greater stimulus arousal enhances this dual competition during parafoveal processing, enabling the organisms to disengage and attend to the periphery.

On the automaticity of the evaluative priming effect in the valent/non-valent categorization task.

It has previously been argued (a) that automatic evaluative stimulus processing is critically dependent upon feature-specific attention allocation and (b) that evaluative priming effects can arise in the absence of dimensional overlap between the prime set and the response set. In line with both claims, research conducted at our lab revealed that the evaluative priming effect replicates in the valent/non-valent categorization task. This research was criticized, however, because non-automatic, strategic processes may have contributed to the emergence of this effect. We now report the results of a replication study in which the operation of non-automatic, strategic processes was controlled for. A clear-cut evaluative priming effect emerged, thus supporting initial claims concerning feature-specific attention allocation and dimensional overlap.

Implicit attitudes towards smoking predict long-term relapse in abstinent smokers.

It has previously been argued that implicit attitudes toward substance-related cues drive addictive behavior. Nevertheless, it remains an open question whether behavioral markers of implicit attitude activation can be used to predict long-term relapse. The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between implicit attitudes toward smoking-related cues and long-term relapse in abstaining smokers. Implicit attitudes toward smoking-related cues were assessed by means of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the evaluative priming task (EPT). Both measures were completed by a group of smokers who volunteered to quit smoking (patient group) and a group of nonsmokers (control group). Participants in the patient group completed these measures twice: once prior to smoking cessation and once after smoking cessation. Relapse was assessed by means of short telephone survey, 6months after completion of the second test session. EPT scores obtained prior to smoking cessation were related to long-term relapse and correlated with self-reported nicotine dependence as well as daily cigarette consumption. In contrast, none of the behavioral outcome measures were found to correlate with the IAT scores. These findings corroborate the idea that implicit attitudes toward substance-related cues are critically involved in long-term relapse. A potential explanation for the divergent findings obtained with the IAT and EPT is provided.

Boundary conditions for the influence of unfamiliar non-target primes in unconscious evaluative priming: The moderating role of attentional task sets.

Evaluative priming by masked emotional stimuli that are not consciously perceived has been taken as evidence that affective stimulus evaluation can also occur unconsciously. However, as masked priming effects were small and frequently observed only for familiar primes that there also presented as visible targets in an evaluative decision task, priming was thought to reflect primarily response activation based on acquired S-R associations and not evaluative semantic stimulus analysis. The present study therefore assessed across three experiments boundary conditions for the emergence of masked evaluative priming effects with unfamiliar primes in an evaluative decision task and investigated the role of the frequency of target repetition on priming with pictorial and verbal stimuli. While familiar primes elicited robust priming effects in all conditions, priming effects by unfamiliar primes were reliably obtained for low repetition (pictures) or unrepeated targets (words), but not for targets repeated at a high frequency. This suggests that unfamiliar masked stimuli only elicit evaluative priming effects when the task set associated with the visible target involves evaluative semantic analysis and is not based on S-R triggered responding as for high repetition targets. The present results therefore converge with the growing body of evidence demonstrating attentional control influences on unconscious processing.

Going to the gym or to the movies?: situated decisions as a functional link connecting automatic and reflective evaluations of exercise with exercising behavior.

The goal of the present paper is to propose a model for the study of automatic cognition and affect in exercise. We have chosen a dual-system approach to social information processing to investigate the hypothesis that situated decisions between behavioral alternatives form a functional link between automatic and reflective evaluations and the time spent on exercise. A new questionnaire is introduced to operationalize this link. A reaction-time-based evaluative priming task was used to test participants' automatic evaluations. Affective and cognitive reflective evaluations, as well as exercising time, were requested via self-report. Path analyses suggest that the affective reflective (beta = .71) and the automatic evaluation (beta = .15) independently explain situated decisions, which, in turn (beta = .60) explain time spent on exercise. Our findings highlight the concept of contextualized decisions. They can serve as a starting point from which the so far seldom investigations of automatic cognition and affect in exercise can be integrated with multitudinous results from studies on reflective psychological determinants of health behavior.

Evaluative Stimulus (In)Congruency Impacts Performance in an Unrelated Task

In two experiments, we assessed evaluative priming effects in a task that was unrelated to the congruent or incongruent stimulus pairs. In each trial, participants saw two valent (positive or negative) pictures that formed evaluatively congruent or incongruent stimulus pairs and a letter that was superimposed on the second picture. Different from typical evaluative priming studies, participants were not required to respond to the second of the valent stimuli, but asked to categorize the letter that was superimposed on the second picture. We assessed the impact of the evaluative (in)congruency of the two pictures on the performance in responding to the letter. In addition, we manipulated attention to the evaluative dimension by asking participants in one experimental group to respond to the valence of the pictures on a subset of trials (evaluative task condition). In both experiments, we found evaluative priming effects in letter categorization responses: Participants categorized the letter faster (and sometimes more correctly) in trials with congruent picture-pairs. These effects were present only in the evaluative task condition. These findings can be explained with different resource-based accounts of evaluative priming and the additional assumption that attention to valence is necessary for evaluative congruency to affect processing resources. According to resource-based accounts valence-incongruent trials require more cognitive resources than valence-congruent trials (e.g., Hermans, Van den Broeck, & Eelen, 1998).