Accessibility of affective versus cognitive components of attitudes

Four studies investigated differences in accessibility of affective and cognitive components of attitudes. Accessibility was measured by response times on bipolar semantic differential evaluative adjectives (e.g. ‘positive–negative’) in response to how one felt and thought, respectively, about an attitude object. The evaluative items were accompanied by affective and cognitive context items, which were not analysed, but were meant to promote the retrieval of affective and cognitive evaluations respectively. Responses to affective evaluations were given faster than responses to cognitive evaluations, suggesting that affect-based evaluations are more accessible in memory than cognition-based evaluations. The results were obtained in two attitude domains, i.e. brand names and countries. The results support the validity of a two-component affect–cognition model of attitude. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implicit Consistency Processes in Social Cognition: Explicit‐Implicit Discrepancies Across Systems of Evaluation

What happens when our automatic evaluations conflict with our attitudes that we can reflect on and articulate? In this paper, we review some processes by which explicit implicit evaluative discrepancies (EIEDs) arise and can impact our thoughts, feelings, and behavior, using a dual‐systems perspective on attitudes to explain the psychological processes underlying these evaluative inconsistencies. EIEDs emerge when differential positive and negative evaluations toward attitude objects reside in systems of knowledge governed by language and reasoning (i.e., explicit evaluations) and systems of knowledge that are association‐based (i.e., implicit evaluations). We discuss factors that produce EIEDs, including the influence of extrapersonal associations on attitudes, temporal, and qualitative differences in encountering attitude‐relevant information, and the differential influence of processing goals. Finally, we discuss consequences of holding EIEDs, including their impact on behaviors toward attitude objects, enhanced elaboration and scrutiny of social information, motivated reasoning, errant affective forecasting, and self‐regulatory success and failure.     

Is affective material in attitudes more accessible than cognitive material? The moderating role of attitude basis

Verplanken, Hofstee, and Janssen (1998) found that the affective component of attitude is accessed more readily than the cognitive. Three studies further examined these findings in the light of two competing explanations: affective primacy, which states that emotional material is inherently more accessible than cognitive; and evaluative primacy, which states that emotional material is more accessible only if it is inherently more evaluative or supports the overall evaluative basis of attitude. Study 1 measured the accessibility of cognitive and affective traits while equalizing the evaluative nature of these traits. This study found a speed advantage for affective traits, but the attitude objects in this study turned out to be mainly affectively based. Studies 2 and 3, using a mixture of affectively and cognitively based objects, found that the speed advantage for affective terms was only found among affectively based objects; Study 3 also found a speed advantage for cognitive terms among cognitively based objects, and additionally found that individual differences in attitude basis explained part of this interaction. Collectively, these studies show that while affective material may be accessed more quickly than cognitive, this is most true when overall evaluation is based on affect rather than cognition. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of affective and cognitive focus on attitude formation

We examined the effects of unobtrusive affective and cognitive focus on attitude formation. To induce focus, participants worked on a word-search puzzle consisting of either affective (e.g., emotion) or cognitive (e.g., reasoning) words. They then read positive and negative affective and cognitive information about a new attitude object. In the affective focus condition, evaluations were more congruent with the valence of the affective information than they were in the cognitive focus condition, where evaluations were more congruent with the valence of the cognitive information than they were in the affective focus condition. Affective focus also resulted in enhanced recall of affective information. The effects on evaluations remained stable over time, whereas effects on memory disappeared. Finally, affective focus was associated with faster response times, suggesting enhanced accessibility of affect-based attitudes. The present research shows that an affective or cognitive focus leads to the formation of different attitudes.     

Understanding Public Attitudes Toward Tobacco Harm Reduction: The Role of Attitude Structure1

The present research examines whether and to what extent the underlying structure of attitudes toward harm reduction and specific reduced‐exposure products contributes to an understanding of public attitudes toward harm reduction. Past research has focused on the extent to which some attitude objects are primarily affective or cognitive. Using survey data from a 5‐state Upper Midwest sample, we tested the relevance of 4 pertinent properties of attitudes for predicting overall attitudes toward tobacco harm reduction: affective and cognitive bases of attitudes; knowledge; experience with smoking and reduced‐harm products; and affective/cognitive consistency. We found that feelings about harm reduction are most predictive of overall attitudes toward harm reduction and specific reduced‐harm products. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

The effects of affective and cognitive elaborations from Facebook posts on consumer attitude formation

This research investigates the effects of affect and cognition in consumers' information processing of branded content on Facebook pages. A model was suggested to delve into the elaboration process leading to consumer attitude formation. A 2 (purchase‐decision involvement: low versus high) × 2 (product categories: hedonic versus utilitarian) × 2 (sources of Facebook posts: brand posts versus consumer posts) between‐subjects experiment was conducted online. The validated model demonstrates the main effects that affective elaboration significantly supersedes cognitive elaboration in forming attitudes toward the posts and attitudes toward the brand. Post hoc analyses show further evidence of the interaction effects that affective elaboration is the dominant influencer when consumers process brand‐related information in Facebook posts across situations. Theoretical implications for future research and managerial suggestions for social media marketing are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the determinants of implicit evaluations: When the present weighs more than the past

It is often assumed that implicit evaluations are influenced by early childhood experiences, whereas explicit evaluations reflect recent experiences. However, previous findings supporting this assumption remain ambiguous as to whether the differential effects of early versus recent experiences are driven by their temporal distance or their affective versus cognitive nature. Controlling for affectivity by using a predominantly affective attitude object (i.e., religion), the present study found that both implicit and explicit evaluations were related to recent, but not early, experiences. This pattern consistently emerged for self-reported experiences as well as independent reports from parents. Moreover, the relation of recent experiences to one type of evaluation remained significant after controlling for the respective other type of evaluation, suggesting that recent experiences influenced implicit and explicit evaluations independently. Implications for attitudinal dissociations and processes of attitude change are discussed.     

Self‐ambivalence and reactions to success versus failure

People differ in the extent to which their self‐evaluations fluctuate in response to positive and negative events. This research tests whether self‐ambivalence predicts this self‐evaluative reactivity. Participants first completed measures of self‐ambivalence and baseline self‐esteem. Next, they were induced a success or failure experience in a cognitive task and finally rated their cognitive self‐evaluations (task‐specific ability, state self‐esteem) and affective reactions (self‐feelings, mood). Self‐ambivalence was associated with stronger effects of the success/failure manipulation on cognitive self‐evaluations but not on affective reactions, with baseline self‐esteem controlled. Possible underlying mechanisms are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attitudes as stable and transparent constructions

In three studies we examined the assumption that attitudes can be based on a stable structure of individually important attributes. In the first study we examined if people are able to adequately determine what the attributes are that underlie their attitude by relating meta-attitudinal measures to more operative measures of attribute importance. The results of the operative measures corroborate the subjective ratings of importance. In the second study we examined the associative strength between the individually important attributes and the attitude object. Results indicate that priming participants with individually important attributes leads to facilitation of the overall attitudinal response, as opposed to priming them with less important attributes. This suggests a bottom-up process underlying attitude judgment. The third study shows that attitude strength can play a moderating role in this respect. Implications for research on attitude structure are discussed.     

Self produced and observed actions influence emotion: the roles of action fluency and eye gaze

Affective responses to objects can be influenced by cognitive processes such as perceptual fluency. Here we investigated whether the quality of motor interaction with an object influences affective response to the object. Participants grasped and moved objects using either a fluent action or a non-fluent action (avoiding an obstacle). Liking ratings were higher for objects in the fluent condition. Two further studies investigated whether the fluency of another person’s actions influences affective response. Observers watched movie clips of the motor actions described above, in conditions where the observed actor could be seen to be looking towards the grasped object, or where the actor’s head and gaze were not visible. Two results were observed: First, when the actor’s gaze cannot be seen, liking ratings of the objects are reduced. Second, action fluency of observed actions does influence liking ratings, but only when the actor’s gaze towards the object is visible. These findings provide supporting evidence for the important role of observed eye gaze in action simulation, and demonstrate that non-emotive actions can evoke empathic states in observers. This research was supported by Economic and Social Research Council grant RES-000-23-0429 awarded to S. P. Tipper and A. E. Hayes.     

Moral cognition,affect, and psychopathy

Few theorists would challenge the idea that affect and emotion directly influence decision-making and moral judgment. There is good reason to think that they also significantly assist in decision-making and judgment, and in fact are necessary for fully effective moral cognition. However, they are not sufficient. Deliberation and more reflective thought processes likewise play a crucial role, and in fact are inseparable from affective processes. I will argue that while the dual-process account of moral judgment set forth by Craigie (2011) has great merit, it fails to appreciate fully the extent to which affective and reflective processes are not only integrated, but also mutually interdependent. Evidence from psychopathy indicates that when reflective processes are not assisted adequately by what I will call ‘affective framing’, and moral cognition is of the “cooler,” less emotionally-informed variety, what results is not effective cognitive functioning, but rather psychopathology. My proposed account of affective framing aims to make sense of the way in which affect plays a strictly necessary and integral role not just in intuitive moral responses, but also in reflective moral judgments, so that moral cognition is accomplished by the joint operation of affective processes and reflective reasoning processes.     

Something old,something new: a developmental transition from familiarity to novelty preferences with hidden objects

Novelty seeking is viewed as adaptive, and novelty preferences in infancy predict cognitive performance into adulthood. Yet 7‐month‐olds prefer familiar stimuli to novel ones when searching for hidden objects, in contrast to their strong novelty preferences with visible objects ( Shinskey & Munakata, 2005 ). According to a graded representations perspective on object knowledge, infants gradually develop stronger object representations through experience, such that representations of familiar objects can be better maintained, supporting greater search than with novel objects. Object representations should strengthen with further development to allow older infants to shift from familiarity to novelty preferences with hidden objects. The current study tested this prediction by presenting 24 11‐month‐olds with novel and familiar objects that were sometimes visible and sometimes hidden. Unlike 7‐month‐olds, 11‐month‐olds showed novelty preferences with both visible and hidden objects. This developmental shift from familiarity to novelty preference with hidden objects parallels one that infants show months earlier with perceptible stimuli, but the two transitions may reflect different underlying mechanisms. The current findings suggest both change and continuity in the adaptive development of object representations and associated cognitive processes.     

Affective guidance of intelligent agents: How emotion controls cognition

How do emotions and moods color cognition? In this article, we examine how such reactions influence both judgments and cognitive performance. We argue that many affective influences are due, not to affective reactions themselves, but to the information they carry about value. The specific kind of influence that occurs depends on the focus of the agent at the time. When making evaluative judgments, for example, an agent’s positive affect may emerge as a positive attitude toward a person or object. But when an agent focuses on a cognitive task, positive affect may act like feedback about the value of one’s approach. As a result, positive affect tends to promote cognitive, relational processes, whereas negative affect tends to inhibit relational processing, resulting in more perceptual, stimulus-specific processing. As a consequence, many textbook phenomena from cognitive psychology occur readily in happy moods, but are inhibited or even absent in sad moods (149).     

Affective Arousal as Information: How Affective Arousal Influences Judgments,Learning, and Memory

The affect‐as‐information framework posits that affect is embodied information about value and importance. The valence dimension of affect provides evaluative information about stimulus objects, which plays a role in judgment and decision‐making. Affect can also provide evaluative information about one's own cognitions and response inclinations, information that guides thinking and reasoning. In particular, positive affect often promotes, and negative affect inhibits, accessible responses or dominant modes of thinking. Affect thus moderates many of the textbook phenomena in cognitive psychology. In the current review, we suggest additionally that the arousal dimension of affect amplifies reactions, leading to intensified evaluations, increased reliance on particular styles of learning, and enhanced long‐term memory for events. We conclude that whereas valenced affective cues serve as information about value, the arousal dimension provides information about urgency or importance.     

A Closer Look at Reactions to Realistic Recruitment Messages

Recently there has been a great deal of interest among consumer and behavioral judgment researchers on how immediate affective reactions influence overall evaluations. The current study seeks to determine whether immediate affective reactions to organizational attributes warrant the attention of recruitment researchers as well. Using a customized web‐based computer program that elicits immediate affective reactions to organizational previews, the study finds that overall evaluations of the organization are influenced more by the average intensity of immediate affective reactions experienced during the message than by the relative balance of positive and negative information contained in the message. Results suggest that practitioners using realistic information need to be more concerned about the average intensity of recipients' reactions than about the relative balance of positive or negative information.     

When Arousal Influences Ad Evaluation and Valence Does Not (and Vice Versa)

This research examines, across 2 studies, the interplay between the valence and arousal components of affective states and the affective tone of a target ad. In the first study, music was used to induce a pleasant or unpleasant mood, while controlling for arousal. Participants were subsequently exposed to an ad that either had a positive‐affective tone or was ambiguous in its affective tone. As predicted, the valence of the affective state colored the evaluation of the ad in a mood‐congruent direction, but this coloring effect occurred only when the ad had an ambiguous‐affective tone. In the second study, the target ad had a clear positive or negative affective tone, and the valence and arousal dimensions of the mood state were manipulated independently. As predicted, the arousal dimension, but not the valence dimension, influenced ad evaluation. Ad evaluations were more polarized in the direction of the ad's affective tone under high arousal than under low arousal. This effect was more pronounced for self‐referent evaluations (e.g., “I like the ad”) than for object‐referent evaluations (e.g., “The ad is good”), favoring an attributional explanation—the excitation transfer hypothesis—over an attention‐narrowing explanation—the dynamic complexity hypothesis. Taken together, the results of the 2 studies stress the important contingency of the affective tone of the ad, when examining the effects of the valence and arousal dimensions of a person's affective state on ad evaluation. The results also provide additional insights into how and when affect serves as information in judgment processes.     

Intention matters to make you (im)moral: Positive-negative asymmetry in moral character evaluations

ABSTRACT

Is intention, even if unfulfilled, enough to make a person appear to be good or bad? In this study, we investigated the influence of unfulfilled intentions of an agent on subsequent moral character evaluations. We found a positive-negative asymmetry in the effect of intentions. Factual information concerning failure to fulfill a positive intention mitigated the morality judgment of the actor, yet this mitigation was not as evident for the negative vignettes. Participants rated an actor who failed to fulfill their negative intention as highly immoral, as long as there was an external explanation to its unfulfillment. Furthermore, both emotional and cognitive (i.e., informativeness) processes mediated the effect of negative intention on moral character. For the positive intention, there was a significant mediation by emotions, yet not by informativeness. Results evidence the relevance of mental states in moral character evaluations and offer affective and cognitive explanations to the asymmetry.     

The Influence of Affective States on Cognitive Broadening/Narrowing: Considering the Importance of Motivational Intensity

Decades of research suggested that positive affective states broaden cognitive processes, whereas negative affective states narrow cognitive processes. More recent research suggests, however, that these conclusions may be premature. These past experiments often compared positive affects low in motivational intensity with negative affects high in motivational intensity. These past experiments, therefore, may have confounded affective valence with motivational intensity. Recent evidence suggests that motivational intensity rather than affective valence influences cognitive broadening/narrowing. That is, affective states of low motivational intensity (e.g., sadness, postgoal positive affect) broaden cognition, whereas affective states of high motivational intensity (e.g., disgust, pregoal positive affect) narrow cognition. We posit that narrowing occurs during affective states of high motivational intensity to aid organisms in acquiring desirable objects or avoiding aversive ones. In contrast, broadening occurs during affective states of low motivational intensity to open organisms to new opportunities.     

Relative influences of affect and cognition on behavior: are feelings or beliefs more related to blood donation intentions?

This study tested the relative predictive power of affect and cognition on global attitude and behavioral intention within the tripartite model of attitude structure. Participants (N = 264) completed questionnaires that included an item regarding blood donation experience, five semantic differential items, four behavioral intention items, and one global attitude item. Participants were randomly assigned to either an affective or cognitive instruction set for the semantic differential items. As predicted, semantic differentials were more highly correlated with both global attitude and behavioral intention when completed under the affective instructions than under the cognitive instructions. In addition, donors' and non-donors' attitudes on the semantic differential scales were distinguished from one another only when they were elicited under the affective instruction set. Results provide support for the tripartite model of attitude structure. Future research should examine the relative importance of affect and cognition in less emotion-laden domains.     

Areas of Interest as a Signal Detection Problem in Behavioral Eye‐Tracking Research

Decision researchers frequently analyze attention to individual objects to test hypotheses about underlying cognitive processes. Generally, fixations are assigned to objects using a method known as area of interest (AOI). Ideally, an AOI includes all fixations belonging to an object while fixations to other objects are excluded. Unfortunately, due to measurement inaccuracy and insufficient distance between objects, the distributions of fixations to objects may overlap, resulting in a signal detection problem. If the AOI is to include all fixations to an object, it will also likely include fixations belonging to other objects (false positives). In a survey, we find that many researchers report testing multiple AOI sizes when performing analyses, presumably trying to balance the proportion of true and false positive fixations. To test whether AOI size influences the measurement of object attention and conclusions drawn about cognitive processes, we reanalyze four published studies and conduct a fifth tailored to our purpose. We find that in studies in which we expected overlapping fixation distributions, analyses benefited from smaller AOI sizes (0° visual angle margin). In studies where we expected no overlap, analyses benefited from larger AOI sizes (>.5° visual angle margins). We conclude with a guideline for the use of AOIs in behavioral eye‐tracking research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.