Review of Cultural Psychology,by Steven J. Heine

Summary

An A-B, B-C, A-C mediation paradigm was used to investigate observational learning of attitudes in a laboratory situation. The A-B stage involved the learning of dissyllables as responses to instances of three concepts. In the B-C stage, Ss observed a model apparently receiving different levels of shock in association with the dissyllables. In the A-C stage, Ss pulled a lever after the presentation of each of the previously learned concept instances and an equal number of new instances of the same concepts. During a second presentation, Ss gave evaluative ratings of the concept instances. The latency, speed, and amplitude of the lever pull response were not affected by the experimental manipulations. With respect to ratings, instances of concepts associated with shock to the model were significantly more disliked than instances of concepts not paired with shock to the model.