Stimulus competition in pre/post and online ratings in an evaluative learning design

Evaluative learning is said to differ from Pavlovian associative learning in that it reflects stimulus contiguity, not contingency. Thus, evaluative learning should not be subject to stimulus competition, a proposal tested in the current experiments. Participants were presented in elemental and compound training phases with pictures of shapes as CSs. Each shape/pair of shapes was followed by a picture of a happy or an angry face as the US. In Experiments 1 and 2, evaluative ratings were collected before and after the experiment, and, in Experiment 3, participants provided evaluations online. Stimulus competition was evident in all experiments confirming that evaluative learning is sensitive to stimulus contingencies.     

Parental perception and interpretation of infant emotions: psychological and physiological processes

To study parental experience and perception of infant emotional expressions parents' responses to infant pictures depicting positive, neutral and negative emotions were assessed on the level of affective judgments (perceived and experienced valence and arousal), of mimic responses (facial muscle activity) and of the eyelid reflex (using the startle paradigm). In general, while parents were able to appropriately perceive infant emotions and were clearly affected by them, they exhibited a bias for positive interpretation. This was obvious from their subjective evaluations which, e.g. were more positive for experienced than for perceived valence, as well as from their mimic responses indicating positive responses in general. In addition, infant pictures including the negative ones lead to an inhibition of the startle reflex, indicating a positive evaluation of infant emotions on the sub‐cortical level. These effects were most prominent when parents were faced with pictures of their own infants as compared to unfamiliar ones. The way parents process information about infant emotions may facilitate appropriate responsiveness to infants' needs. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of evaluation and potency on perceivers' causal attributions

In two experiments, this paper examines how the labels used to describe interpersonal interactions can affect perceivers' judgments of who caused the interaction. Two universal, connotative dimensions of word meaning underlying the labels, evaluation and potency, influenced expectations about interactants' behaviors and experiences, which in turn affected perceivers' causal attributions. Evaluation and potency ratings for a set of experiencer verbs, a set of action verbs, a set of trait labels (Experiment 1) and a set of social category labels (Experiment 2) were used to construct sentences describing interactions between two people. The complete set of sentences contained all possible combinations of high or low evaluation and potency for all the sentence constituents. Participants were asked to judge who caused the event—subject or object—without having been told that evaluation and potency were the dimensions of interest. When the sentence subject and object differed in evaluation, the evaluative match between the sentence subject and the verb was the most important factor influencing attributions. The potency of the constituents and the class of the verb (experiencer or action) affected the magnitude of the attributions. When the sentence subject and object shared the same valence, attributions were based on verb class. The results highlight the important role of language in interpreting social behavior. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A neurobehavioral investigation into judgmental processes: effect of bilateral motor behaviors

Two experiments were conducted in order to examine how different bilateral motor activations of the approach and avoidance motivational systems influenced participants' evaluations of valenced stimuli (figurative expressions and pictures of everyday situations). The first Study (Study 1) showed that participants judged valenced expressions according to the motor congruence model put forward by Cretenet and Dru (2004). This may depend on the compatibility of the valenced stimuli with the congruency of the bilateral motor behaviors that involved two unilateral motor behaviors that are congruent to each other. These results were duplicated in Study 2 with the use of valenced pictures taken from the International Affective Picture System. The overall results shed new light on the influence of motor behaviors on judgments, by determining the motor system as operative in evaluative mechanisms, and not merely a simple executive function of higher cognitive processes.     

Shaking That Icky Feeling: Effects of Extinction and Counterconditioning on Disgust-Related Evaluative Learning

Learned disgust appears to play an important role in certain anxiety disorders, and can be explained by the process of evaluative conditioning, in which an affective evaluative reaction evoked by an unconditional stimulus (US) is transferred to a conditional stimulus (CS). Much remains unknown about how disgust-related evaluative learning can be effectively eliminated. Study 1 of the present investigation examined the effects of extinction on reducing the negative evaluation of a CS that was acquired during disgust conditioning. Participants completed acquisition trials, with a disgusting picture as US and two neutral pictures as CS (CS + was paired with the US; CS- was unpaired), followed by extinction trials ("CS only"; experimental condition) or a filler task (control condition). Extinction trials reduced acquired US expectancy to the CS +, but did not extinguish negative evaluations of the CS +. Study 2 examined the effects of counterconditioning on evaluative learned disgust. After disgust acquisition trials, counterconditioning trials followed in which the CS + was paired with a pleasant US (experimental condition) or a filler task (control condition). Counterconditioning trials reduced acquired US expectancy to the CS + and reduced evaluative conditioned disgust. Implications of the potential differential effects of extinction and counterconditioning on evaluative learning for exposure-based treatment of specific anxiety disorders are discussed.     

Incidental anger and the desire to evaluate

Our results indicate that people experiencing incidental anger are more likely than people in neutral and other emotional states to prefer to perform evaluative tasks, even though their anger may bias the evaluations they make. Induced anger increased participants’ desire to evaluate others’ ideas (Experiment 1) and made the evaluations of those ideas more negative in valence (Experiment 2). Anger increased the appeal of evaluating ideas when evaluations were expected to be largely negative but not when evaluations were expected to be positive (Experiments 3 and 4). Mediation analyses revealed that this willingness to evaluate when angry stems from a belief that evaluating others can leave angry people in a positive mood. Because people are often free to decide when to perform the tasks required of them, this tendency may have implications for how and when ideas are evaluated.     

Impressions at the intersection of ambiguous and obvious social categories: Does gay + Black = likable?

How do perceivers combine information about perceptually obvious categories (e.g., Black) with information about perceptually ambiguous categories (e.g., gay) during impression formation? Given that gay stereotypes are activated automatically, we predicted that positive gay stereotypes confer evaluative benefits to Black gay targets, even when perceivers are unaware of targets' sexual orientations. Participants in Study 1 rated faces of White straight men as more likable than White gay men, but rated Black men in the opposite manner: gays were liked more than straights. In Study 2, participants approaching Whites during an approach–avoidance task responded faster to straights than gays, whereas participants approaching Blacks responded faster to gays than straights. These findings highlight the striking extent to which less visible categories, like sexual orientation, subtly influence person perception and determine the explicit and implicit evaluations individuals form about others.     

Latent Extinction in a Multiple-T Maze within Heterogeneous and Homogeneous Environments

This investigation found support for the general hypothesis that prior social experience influences current perception of historically relevant cues. Male college Ss, matched for quality of prior maternal evaluation, were separated into those (N = 40) who rated their fathers positive in their evaluations of them (HN) and those (N = 38) who rated their fathers as more negative (LN). These groups did not differ in their perception of maternal evaluative cues when presented alone. When paternal evaluative cues were presented as distractors, selective attention to maternal cues was more disrupted for the LN group. Deployment of attention to task-irrelevant paternal cues, as inferred from intrusions, did not differ for the HN and the LN groups. However, the LN subjects did demonstrate a negative qualitative bias in those intrusion errors which came from the task-irrelevant paternal set, whereas HN subjects showed a positive qualitative bias. Both biases were in keeping with paternal evaluative histories. Greater disruption of LN task performance may have been the result of responses, such as anxiety, associated with their negative bias.     

A metacognitive approach to "implicit" and "explicit" evaluations: comment on Gawronski and Bodenhausen (2006)

A metacognitive model (MCM) is presented to describe how automatic (implicit) and deliberative (explicit) measures of attitudes respond to change attempts. The model assumes that contemporary implicit measures tap quick evaluative associations, whereas explicit measures also consider the perceived validity of these associations (and other factors). Change in explicit measures is greater than implicit measures when new evaluative associations are formed and old associations are rejected. Implicit measure change is greater than explicit when newly formed evaluative associations are rejected. When implicit and explicit evaluations conflict, implicit ambivalence can occur. The authors relate the MCM to the associative-propositional evaluation model and explain how the MCM builds on the attitude strength assumptions of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion.     

Crossed-categorization, evaluation, and face recognition

We investigated the relationship between evaluative intergroup bias and biased errors in intergroup face recognition after crossed-categorization (the combination of two social categories in defining a target of perception). Although evaluative bias and recognition bias often operate in parallel, we draw on two previously unconnected literatures to predict a divergence between these two processes after crossed-categorization. We tested this hypothesis by assessing participants’ evaluations of and recognition of targets who shared two ingroups with participants, targets who shared only one ingroup with participants, and targets who shared neither ingroup. Consistent with predictions, targets’ shared and unshared group memberships combined additively to affect evaluation, but targets who shared two ingroup memberships were better recognized than all other category combinations. These results document the relationship between evaluative bias and recognition bias after crossed-categorization and indicate that crossed-categorization affects evaluative bias and recognition bias in different ways.     

Social Comparisons and Adjustment Among Cardiac Patients1

The research examined social comparisons, affiliative choices, and their relation to adjustment among patients in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Consistent with Taylor and Lobel (1989), evaluative and affiliative processes diverged, with patients making downward evaluations (Wills, 1981) but choosing to affiliate with those who were better off than themselves. Consistent with predictions, downward evaluation was associated with better psychological adjustment, supporting the idea that these comparisons meet self-enhancement needs; upward affiliations were associated with hopefulness and inspiration, as well as with the perception that such comparisons provide information that is useful for improving one's own condition. The implications of evaluative comparison and affiliative activities for coping is discussed.     

From adorable to worthless: implicit and self‐report structure of highly evaluative personality descriptors

So‐called highly ‘evaluative’ personality judgments (e.g. describing someone as exceptional, odd, or vile,) are an integral component of people's daily judgments of themselves and others. However, little is known about the conceptual structure, psychological function, and personality‐relevance of these kinds of attribution. Two studies were conducted to explore the internal (i.e. implicit) and external (i.e. self‐report) structure of highly evaluative terms. Factor analyses of semantic‐similarity sortings and self‐reports on several representative samples of highly evaluative personality adjectives yielded internal and external structures that were very similar. Both types of structure included five dimensions representing distinction, worthlessness, depravity, unconventionality, and stupidity. The robustness of the uncovered dimensions across the two studies suggests that typically excluded highly evaluative personality terms, far from being behaviorally ambiguous and psychologically uninformative, allude to meaningful dispositions that people both implicitly understand and possess to different degrees. These findings also suggest that highly evaluative personality judgments are organized around the basic domains of morality (i.e. depravity), power (distinction and worthlessness), peculiarity (unconventionality), and intelligence (stupidity). We discuss the implications of our findings for the study of self‐ and other‐esteem processes, personality perception, and the Big Seven factor model of personality. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contextual influences on implicit evaluation: a test of additive versus contrastive effects of evaluative context stimuli in affective priming

Drawing on two alternative accounts of the affective priming effect (spreading activation vs. response interference), the present research investigated the underlying processes of how evaluative context stimuli influence implicit evaluations in the affective priming task. Employing two sequentially presented prime stimuli (rather than a single prime), two experiments showed that affective priming effects elicited by a given prime stimulus were more pronounced when this stimulus was preceded by a context prime of the opposite valence than when it was preceded by a context prime of the same valence. This effect consistently emerged for pictures (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2) as prime stimuli. These results suggest that the impact of evaluative context stimuli on implicit evaluations is mediated by contrast effects in the attention to evaluative information rather than by additive effects in the activation of evaluative information in associative memory.     

Unemployment and self-conception: A symbolic interactionist analysis

A symbolic interactionist analysis of the relationship between unemployment and self-conception was tested using a cross-sectional questionnaire design (n = 88). Job loss had significant negative associations with reflected appraisals (perceived evaluations) from friends, family, employers, unemployed people and people in general. Significant relationships between reflected appraisals and the evaluative, consistency and involvement dimensions of self-concept were also observed. Consistent with symbolic interactionist theory, path analysis showed that reflected appraisals mediated the relationship between employment status and self-conception. Unemployment duration and gender both moderated the effects of reflected appraisal upon self-conception such that reflected appraisals were associated with different self-concept dimensions for unemployed men versus unemployed women and ‘shorter’ versus ‘longer-term’ unemployed people. Results are discussed in the context of recent developments in the social psychology of the self-concept. Suggestions for future research are outlined.     

See what you think: reappraisal modulates behavioral and neural responses to social stimuli

The social environment requires people to quickly form contextually appropriate social evaluations. Models of social cognition suggest that this ability depends on the interaction of automatic and controlled evaluative systems. However, controlled processes, such as reappraisal of an initial response, have rarely been studied in the context of social evaluation. In the two studies reported here, participants reappraised or simply observed angry or neutral faces. In Study 1, reappraisal modulated evaluations of angry faces on explicit as well as implicit behavioral levels. In Study 2, reappraisal altered both early and late phases of evaluative electrocortical processing. These studies suggest that controlled processes, such as reappraisal, can quickly and substantially modulate early evaluative processes in the context of biologically significant social stimuli.     

情感一致性及其对认知加工的影响

具身情绪观认为情感的核心功能是评价,这种评价信息会同时表征在低层感知系统和高层认知系统中,它们相互影响、互为因果。情感一致性反映的是情感具身反应（心理感受、情感相关的身体动作和表情等）与情感认知评价（情感的观念性内容,积极与消极）在效价上的耦合关系。这种关系突出的表现为效价上是否一致,情感一致促进其后的认知加工,情感不一致的作用相反。该观点在短时记忆、叙事建构、刻板印象和说服效果等领域得到了证实。未来的研究应重视情感一致性的情感意义,扩展情感一致性定义及假设,并检验情感一致性的评价本质。     

Human evaluative conditioning: Order of stimulus presentation

In an experiment designed to demonstrate evaluative conditioning, subjects were shown 48 pictures of sculptures that they rated on a scale with 21 categories (?10 to +10). Then, the two most liked pictures (L) were paired with pictures from the categories ?1, 0, or +1 (N). In contrast to prior experiments, subjects were given either forward conditioning (N-L) or backward conditioning (L-N) trials but not both. Four other neutral stimuli were paired with each other (N-N) and acted as control stimulus pairs. After conditioning, the stimuli were rated a second time. There was a statistically significant difference in evaluative ratings showing a change of the evaluative tone of the previously neutral stimuli in a positive direction only after forward conditioning. This finding is inconsistent with results of prior experiments and challenges the assumption of Martin and Levey (1987) that evaluative conditioning is different from human classical conditioning.