Conditioning, expectancy, and the placebo effect: comment on Stewart-Williams and Podd (2004)

Classical conditioning is included as a component in the response expectancy model of placebo responding. Though introspectable when attention is drawn to them, expectancies need not be in awareness while guiding behavior. Most placebo effects are linked to expectancies, and classical conditioning is one factor (but not the only factor) by which these expectancies can be produced and altered. Conditioned placebo effects without expectancies exist but are relatively rare in humans. The adaptive advantage of cognition is increased response flexibility. For it to convey that benefit, however, it must be capable of overriding the influence of simpler automatic processes. Thus, the higher up the phylogenetic scale, the smaller the role of nonconscious conditioning processes and the larger the role of cognition.     

Core beliefs,automatic thoughts and response expectancies in predicting public speaking anxiety

The present study examined the relationships between broad core cognitions, situation-specific automatic thoughts, and response expectancies in regard to their relative contributions to public speaking anxiety. Ninety-nine socially anxious participants (mean age = 20.25) completed measures of irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts specific to public speaking. Participants were then announced the task – giving a speech in front of a virtual reality audience – and response expectancies were measured. Subjective anxiety was measured just before the speech. As predicted, response expectancies and negative automatic thoughts specific to public speaking were each found to mediate the relationship between irrational beliefs and public speaking anxiety. Multiple mediation analysis indicated that the core irrational beliefs generated specific beliefs (i.e., response expectancies that primed automatic thoughts) that acted on speech-related anxiety.     

Chronic and temporary distinct expectancies as comparison standards: automatic contrast in dispositional judgments

In 4 studies, the authors examined whether making outcome expectancies distinct resulted in their use as comparison standards and, consequently, in contrastive dispositional inferences for a target's behaviors. The expectancies examined were based on either chronic future-event expectancies (Study 1) or temporary, manipulated expectancy standards (Studies 2-4). Analyses revealed that when contextual expectancies were distinct or separable from target information, participants' dispositional judgments were contrasted from them under cognitive load and overcorrected (assimilated to them) under no load. These effects were mediated by participants' behavior categorizations. Evidence suggestive of a proceduralized form of correction for task difficulty and an effortful awareness-based correction for the effects of expectancies also were found. Results are examined in light of recent models of the dispositional inference process.     

Feeling bad about being sad: the role of social expectancies in amplifying negative mood

Our perception of how others expect us to feel has significant implications for our emotional functioning. Across 4 studies the authors demonstrate that when people think others expect them not to feel negative emotions (i.e., sadness) they experience more negative emotion and reduced well-being. The authors show that perceived social expectancies predict these differences in emotion and well-being both more consistently than-and independently of-personal expectancies and that they do so by promoting negative self-evaluation when experiencing negative emotion. We find evidence for these effects within Australia (Studies 1 and 2) as well as Japan (Study 2), although the effects of social expectancies are especially evident in the former (Studies 1 and 2). We also find experimental evidence for the causal role of social expectancies in negative emotional responses to negative emotional events (Studies 3 and 4). In short, when people perceive that others think they should feel happy, and not sad, this leads them to feel sad more frequently and intensely.     

Prejudiced learning: A connectionist account

Connectionist simulation was employed to investigate processes that may underlie the relationships between prior expectancies or prejudices and the acquisition of attitudes, under conditions where learners can only discover the valence of attitude objects through directly experiencing them. We compared contexts analogous to learners holding either false negative expectancies (‘prejudices’) about a subclass of objects that were actually good or false positive expectancies about objects that were actually bad. We introduced expectancy‐related bias either by altering the probability of approach, or by varying the rate of learning following experience with good or bad objects. Where feedback was contingent on approach, the false positive expectancies were corrected by experience, but negative prejudices resisted change, since the network avoided objects deemed to be bad, and so received less corrective feedback. These findings are discussed in relation to the effects of intergroup contact and expectancy‐confirmation processes in reducing or sustaining prejudice.     

What you expect is not always what you get: The roles of extremity, optimism, and pessimism in the behavioral confirmation process

Do pessimists and optimists elicit the very behavior they expect from others? What if their expectations are fairly extreme? Using a simulated job interview paradigm, evidence was found for behavioral confirmation of generalized future-event expectancies (optimism/pessimism) and for the moderating role of extremity. Interviewers with nonextreme expectancies gathered information in an expectancy-biased fashion and elicited expectancy-confirming behavior from applicants. However, as interviewer expectancies became more extreme, these effects were attenuated. Further evidence suggested that extremity is associated with effortful correction processes and awareness of bias. Interestingly, pessimistic applicants were more strongly influenced by interviewers’ expectancies than were optimistic applicants. The current study extends research on the social-cognitive consequences of generalized future-event expectancies and extremity to the behavioral domain.     

Self-fulfilling effects of stigmatizing information on children's social interactions.

The stigmatizing effects of negative expectancies were examined in observations of interactions between children with and without a behavior problem. Ss were 68 pairs of unacquainted boys in Grades 3-6. In each dyad, a normal boy was either told that his partner had a behavior problem or given no expectancy; this expectancy manipulation was crossed with the partner's actual diagnostic status with respect to hyperactivity. The perceivers' expectancy that their partner had a behavior problem as well as the actual diagnostic status of the target adversely affected the boys' interactions. Behavioral data suggest how the expectancies were communicated to the target. The processes underlying interpersonal expectancy effects and the ways in which a childhood stigma can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy are discussed.     

The interplay of controlled and automatic processing in the expression of spontaneously inferred traits: A PDP analysis

Inferences made about actors influence subsequent processing about those actors. Three experiments conducted in the context of spontaneous trait inference (STI) making demonstrate that such influences occur can either occur via automatic processes or via controlled processes. Results from Experiment 1 demonstrated that processing goals manipulated prior to encoding actor behavior affected the extent to which STIs automatically influenced subsequent responses but did not alter the extent to which STIs influenced those responses via controlled processes. Results from Experiment 2 showed that the extent to which STIs affected subsequent responding via the action of controlled processes were more affected by a delay between exposure to an actor behavior and the response task than the extent to which STIs affected task performance via the action of automatic processes. Finally, results from Experiment 3 showed that participants' subjective experience of awareness of their trait inferences is related to estimates of the extent to which controlled processing is involved in the production of their future responses but not to estimates of the extent to which those responses are affected by automatic processing.     

Neuroticism and interpersonal negativity: the independent contributions of perceptions and behaviors

Why are neurotic intimates likely to have troubled relationships? Do they create greater negativity through their own negative behavior, or do they perceive greater negativity through processes of perceptual construal? The current research addressed this question through a study of newlyweds. Spouses reported their neuroticism and their expectancies for two upcoming problem-solving discussions with their partners, then participated in those discussions, and finally reported their perceptions of how their partners behaved during the discussions. Objective observations revealed that the partners of more neurotic spouses behaved more negatively than the partners of less neurotic spouses. For wives, their own behavior mediated these effects. In addition, once the objective quality of partners' behavior was controlled, more neurotic spouses also reported more negative perceptions of those partners' behavior. For husbands, their own expectancies mediated these effects. That personality uniquely affects relationships through behavioral and perceptual processes suggests that those processes should be studied independently.     

The placebo effect: dissolving the expectancy versus conditioning debate

The authors review the literature on the 2 main models of the placebo effect: expectancy theory and classical conditioning. A path is suggested to dissolving the theoretical impasse that has long plagued this issue. The key is to make a clear distinction between 2 questions: What factors shape placebo effects? and What learning mediates the placebo effect? The reviewed literature suggests that classical conditioning procedures are one shaping factor but that verbal information can also shape placebo effects. The literature also suggests that conditioning procedures and other sources of information sometimes shape conscious expectancies and that these expectancies mediate some placebo effects; however, in other cases conditioning procedures appear to shape placebo effects that are not mediated by conscious cognition.     

From automatic antigay prejudice to behavior: the moderating role of conscious beliefs about gender and behavioral control

Two experiments tested whether the relation between automatic prejudice and discriminatory behavior is moderated by 2 conscious processes: conscious egalitarian beliefs and behavioral control. The authors predicted that, when both conscious processes are deactivated, automatic prejudice would elicit discriminatory behavior. When either of the 2 processes is activated, behavioral bias would be eliminated. The authors assessed participants' automatic attitudes toward gay men, conscious beliefs about gender, behavioral control, and interactions with gay confederates. In Experiment 1, men's beliefs about gender were heterogeneous, whereas women's beliefs were mostly egalitarian; men's responses supported the predictions, but women's responses did not. In Experiment 2, the authors recruited a sample with greater diversity in gender-related beliefs. Results showed that, for both sexes, automatic prejudice produced biased behavior in the absence of conscious egalitarian beliefs and behavioral control. The presence of either conscious process eliminated behavioral bias.     

Response expectancy theory and application: A decennial review

Response expectancy is the anticipation of automatic, subjective, and behavioral responses to particular situational cues. More than a decade of research in diverse laboratories indicates that response expectancies are important considerations in designing and administering treatments and prevention programs for such problems as anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, and sexual dysfunction. Response expectancy also plays a central role in the effects of antidepressive medication, psychotherapy, and hypnosis. In addition, studies of the effects of placebos reveal that response expectancies can produce lasting changes in pain, anxiety, depression, alertness, tension, sexual arousal, alcohol craving and consumption, aggression, asthma, warts, and contact dermatitis. The veracity of many self-reported placebo effects have been corroborated by changes in physiological function.     

Effects of written emotional expression: the role of positive expectancies.

OBJECTIVE: Writing in an emotional way about stressful or traumatic experiences has beneficial effects on emotional well-being and physical health. Yet the mechanisms that underlie these effects still need to be explored. Integrating research on the effects of positive expectancies, the authors suggest that positive effects of written emotional expression may, in part, depend on expectancies induced by writing about emotional experiences. DESIGN: Two studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In both studies, participants wrote about either an upsetting event or trivial issues. After the writing period, participants rated their expectancies that the writing intervention would improve (or impair) their emotional well-being over time. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Study 1 assessed the emotional impact of an upsetting event, whereas Study 2 assessed subjective reports of physical symptoms. In both studies, outcome variables were collected both before and 6 weeks after the writing intervention. RESULTS: The results showed that (a) writing about upsetting experiences induced higher positive expectancies than writing about trivial issues and (b) expectancies associated with written emotional expression were related to a reduction in the emotional impact of an upsetting event (Study 1) and to a reduction in physical symptoms (Study 2). CONCLUSIONS: There may be 2 alternative ways to render written emotional expression effective in reducing negative emotions: (a) by rendering an emotional experience more meaningful and (b) by inducing positive affect regulation expectancies.     

Long-term aftereffects of response inhibition: memory retrieval, task goals, and cognitive control

Cognitive control theories attribute control to executive processes that adjust and control behavior online. Theories of automaticity attribute control to memory retrieval. In the present study, online adjustments and memory retrieval were examined, and their roles in controlling performance in the stop-signal paradigm were elucidated. There was evidence of short-term response time adjustments after unsuccessful stopping. In addition, it was found that memory retrieval can slow responses for 1-20 trials after successful inhibition, which suggests the automatic retrieval of task goals. On the basis of these findings, the authors concluded that cognitive control can rely on both memory retrieval and executive processes.     

Questioning Pygmalion in the twenty-first century: the formation,transmission, and attributional influence of teacher expectancies

Teacher expectancy effects, the class of phenomena in which teacher beliefs about students influence student outcomes, are widely believed to operate through recursive processes of teacher-student interaction. Recent work in “wise” interventions has shown profound and robust effects in educational domains, and has attributed these effects to similar recursive processes (Yeager and Walton 2011). In this paper, we lay a foundation for forging connections between what we know about expectancy effects and how we might envision applying that knowledge as a lever in intervention research. We review the evidence for the existence and significance of teacher expectancy effects, as well as their possible mediators, including perceptual biases, confirmation biases, stereotyping, and attributional biases. We also hypothesize that empathy could play a role in mediating a relationship between expectancies and attributions. Finally, we propose a research agenda focused on the transmission, mediation, and attributional effects of teacher expectancies.     

Thinness and eating expectancies predict subsequent binge-eating and purging behavior among adolescent girls

One's expectancies for reinforcement from eating or from thinness are thought to represent summaries of one's eating-related learning history and to thus influence the development of binge-eating and purging behavior. In a 3-year longitudinal study, the authors tested this hypothesis and the hypothesis that binge eating also influences subsequent expectancy development. The authors used trajectory analysis to identify groups of middle school girls who followed different trajectories of binge eating, purging, eating expectancies, and thinness expectancies. Initial eating and thinness reinforcement expectancies identified girls whose binge eating and purging increased during middle school, and expectancies differentiated girls who began these problem behaviors from girls who did not. Initial binge-eating scores differentiated among eating expectancy developmental trajectories. The onset of most behaviors can be understood in terms of learned expectancies for reinforcement from these behaviors. The same model can be applied to the risk for eating disorders.     

Alcohol and human sexuality: review and integration

Summarizes physiological findings and reviews the psychological experimental literature investigating the relationship between alcohol and human sexuality. Specifically, the authors attempt to reconcile the apparent contradictions found in the effects of alcohol on male and female sexual responding. The review concludes (a) that alcohol disinhibits psychological sexual arousal and suppresses physiological responding, the former effect being stronger at lower doses of alcohol and the latter effect at higher doses; (b) that although suppression is strictly pharmacological in nature, disinhibition appears to be both pharmacological (the result of cognitive impairment) and psychological (the result of socially learned expectancies); and (c) that expectancies and cognitive impairment can disinhibit separately or jointly.     

Predictability influences stopping and response control

Using a continuous tracking task, the authors examined whether stopping is resistant to expectancies as well as whether it is a representative measure of response control. Participants controlled the speed of a moving marker by continuously adjusting their response force. Participants stopped their ongoing tracking in response to auditory signals on 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of trials. Stopping was contrasted with accelerating, in which participants accelerated the marker in response to the signals. In Experiment 1, on each trial participants either stopped or accelerated, allowing a trade-off between the two. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants only stopped or only accelerated, thus decreasing the likelihood of a trade-off. When a trade-off was possible, stopping was resistant to expectancies. However, with little or no trade-off, expectancies influenced stopping and accelerating similarly. These findings contrast with the established view that stopping is insensitive to expectancies. In addition, when trade-offs are prevented, these results confirm that stopping is representative of other response adjustment measures.     

Effect anticipation and action control

According to the authors' 2-phase model of action control, people first incidentally acquire bidirectional associations between motor patterns and movement-contingent events and then intentionally use these associations for goal-directed action. The authors tested the model in 4 experiments, each comprising an acquisition phase, in which participants experienced co-occurrences between left and right keypresses and low- and high-pitched tones, and a test phase, in which the tones preceded the responses in forced- and free-choice designs. Both reaction time and response frequency in the test phase depended on the learned associations, indicating that presenting a tone activated the associated response. Results are interpreted as evidence for automatic action-outcome integration and automatic response priming through learned action effects. These processes may be basic for the control of voluntary action by the anticipation of action goals.