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Assimilation and Contrast in Social Priming
Abstract
The investigation of context effects in social judgment has revealed numerous variables that influence the emergence of assimilation and contrast effects as consequences of social priming. The present manuscript provides an overview of the core findings of this research. The discussion of the variables determining assimilation versus contrast is embedded in the inclusion/exclusion model of social judgment (IEM), which holds that including accessible information into the representation of the judgmental target elicits assimilation effects while excluding it from the target representation causes contrast. Exclusion processes are triggered when individuals perceive accessible information as not relevant, or not representative, or when conversational rules suggest that using the accessible information is not adequate. It is proposed that much of the available evidence on the determinants of assimilation versus contrast effects can be organized into this general framework.
... contrast) effects occur a) when accessible information is included (vs. excluded) in the representation of the judgment target (Bless & Burger, 2016), b) when there is a high (vs. low) level of processing fluency of the activated concept (Greifeneder & Bless, 2010), or c) when processing occurs on a global (vs. ...
... Promising advances have recently been made by Gronchi and Provenzi (2017) and new models are currently being worked on (e.g., https://lair.shinyapps.io/acmodel/). (which is directly related to assimilation and contrast; e.g., Bless & Burger, 2016) and ego depletion (which is indirectly related to assimilation and contrast; e.g., Röseler et al., 2020). ...
Whenever a stimulus is rated, that judgment can be influenced by another stimulus so that the rated stimulus is rated as more similar (assimilation) or less similar (contrast) to the other stimulus. Theories about phenomena referring to assimilation and contrast can be found in several fields of psychology. Still, the respective research is unconnected and has not been integrated. In the present review, we present theories that aim at explaining and predicting assimilation and contrast effects. We observe that theoretical and empirical overlap of the theories and models is surprisingly strong and introduce an ‘overlap-model of assimilation and contrast’ to systematize the plethora of existing theories and phenomena. We discuss potential reasons for similarities between these approaches and suggest that future research should tackle approach assimilation and contrast effects in a more systematic way than has been done in the past.
... Contrast effects have been observed in various research fields, particularly when there is a large discrepancy between expectations and experiences. 1,7,11,18,19,36,44,45 However, to the best of our knowledge, currently, no empirical evidence exists for contrast effects on pain. This may be partly due to the use of relatively small and hence unnoticed expectation-experience discrepancies in previous research. ...
... 2,3,8,10,34,35,44,[48][49][50]59,62 However, they contradict our hypothesis of contrast effects (ie, increased pain), which we formulated based on the literature on contrast effects for diverse outcomes in cases of large expectation-experience discrepancies. 1,7,11,18,19,36,44,45,62 A lack of awareness of the discrepancy is unlikely to explain our current findings, as we intentionally drew participants' attention to the expectation-experience (mis) match. Participants' resultant awareness was indicated by how they compared their experiences with what they expected and were instructed. ...
Expectancies can shape pain and other experiences. Generally, experiences change in the direction of what is expected (i.e., assimilation effects), as seen with placebo effects. However, in case of large expectation-experience discrepancies, experiences might change away from what is expected (i.e., contrast effects). Previous research has demonstrated contrast effects on various outcomes, but not pain. We investigated the effects of strong underpredictions of pain on experienced pain intensity. Additionally, we assessed related outcomes including (certainty of) expectations, fear of pain, pain unpleasantness, autonomic responses, and trust. Healthy participants (Study 1: n=81, Study 2: n=123) received verbal suggestions that subsequent heat stimuli would be moderately or highly painful (correct prediction), mildly painful (medium underprediction; Study 2 only), or non-painful (strong underprediction). Both studies showed that participants experienced less intense pain upon strong underprediction than upon correct prediction (i.e., assimilation). Expected pain, fear of pain, and pain unpleasantness were generally also lowered. However, strong underprediction simultaneously lowered certainty of expectations and trust in the experimenter. Study 2 indicated that the effects of strong underprediction versus medium underprediction generally did not differ. Moreover, Study 2 provided some indications for reduced heart rate and skin conductance levels, but increased skin conductance responses upon strong underprediction. In conclusion, even strong underpredictions of pain can reduce pain (i.e., cause assimilation), although not significantly more than medium underpredictions. However, strong underpredictions can cause uncertainty and undermine trust. These findings suggest that healthcare providers may wish to be cautious with providing overly positive information about painful medical procedures.
... They also demonstrated that this influence can take two forms: assimilation or contrast (see, Bless & Burger, 2016;DeCoster & Claypool, 2004, for reviews). Assimilation effects occur when judgments of the target (or reactions to it) are biased in the direction of the prime (e.g., people primed with concepts associated with hostility perceive others' behavior as more hostile; Srull & Wyer, 1979), whereas contrast effects occur when judgments of the target (or Emotional contagion and correction hypothesis 15 reactions to it) are biased away from the prime (e.g., people primed with images of highly attractive individuals rate others as less attractive; Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980). ...
... Assimilation effects occur when judgments of the target (or reactions to it) are biased in the direction of the prime (e.g., people primed with concepts associated with hostility perceive others' behavior as more hostile; Srull & Wyer, 1979), whereas contrast effects occur when judgments of the target (or Emotional contagion and correction hypothesis 15 reactions to it) are biased away from the prime (e.g., people primed with images of highly attractive individuals rate others as less attractive; Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980). These two biasing effects have been observed in a variety of judgmental domains, including not only the assessments of others but also self-evaluations (Brown, Novick, Lord, & Richards, 1992;Mussweiler, Rüter, & Epstude, 2004) As over the years it has become clear that the direction of priming depends on specific conditions, psychologists became interested in studying variables determining assimilation versus contrast as well as the mechanisms producing these effects (see Bless & Burger, 2016, for a review). Initially, it was thought that assimilation is likely to occur when participants are not aware of the influence of a prime, whereas contrast is observed when this influence is apparent. ...
Emotional contagion has long been conceptualized as the automatic transfer of affective states between people, similar to the spread of diseases. New evidence, however, has challenged this view by demonstrating that emotions, contrary to diseases, spread selectively rather than blindly because their transfer is controlled by social factors. Here, we take a closer look at this top-down social control of emotional contagion. We review literature on the moderating role of social factors in emotional contagion and emotional mimicry, a process often considered a basic mechanism of emotional contagion. We argue that top-down social processes controlling emotional mimicry may be explained by the correction hypothesis formulated to account for contrast effects in priming research. We also analyze whether similar corrective processes may be involved in less automatic mechanisms of emotional contagion, such as social appraisal. Finally, we propose that the modulating effects of social factors on emotional contagion and its mechanisms, similar to priming effects, may be interpreted within the framework of dual-process theories.
... On the one hand there may be an "assimilation effect" (Bless & Burger, 2016). Assimilation effects occur when exposure to a reference group result in an individual's attitudes moving closer to those of the reference group. ...
... On the other hand, there may be a "contrast effect" (Bless & Burger, 2016). Contrast effects occur when exposure to a reference group result in an individual's attitudes moving further from those of the reference group. ...
An extensive literature has investigated the link between living in an area with an academically selective schooling system and young people’s educational outcomes. In contrast, evidence on the link between selective education and young people’s wider outcomes is relatively sparse. This article uses rich survey data to test whether young people living in selective education areas in England have better academic, social, and emotional outcomes than their peers who live in nonselective areas. Results show that exposure to the selection process has limited impact upon young people’s socioemotional outcomes. We do find, however, that selective systems increase the socioeconomic gradient of educational aspirations, driven by divergence between those who do and do not gain entry to the selective track.
... If so, the (in this example, positive) retrieved information about effectiveness will be excluded from the judgment about trust. This is sometimes called a subtraction-based contrast effect, because the effectiveness evaluation is mentally subtracted from the trust evaluation (Bless & Burger, 2016;Schuman & Presser, 1981;Sudman et al., 1996). The result is that less positive information is included in the trust evaluation than would otherwise be the case, and therefore lower trust is the resultthe opposite direction compared to assimilation. ...
Question‐order bias is a well‐known weakness of surveys commonly used in public administration research. However, most research on question‐order bias uses question‐order experiments that are relatively small, performed in one context, and rarely replicated. We carry out six question‐order experiments in six large‐scale Belgian surveys conducted during the COVID‐19 pandemic. All experiments vary whether the respondents see questions regarding the effectiveness of pandemic governance or trust in different actors first. Results show that question‐order effects are real and reasonably consistent across the high‐powered replications, despite the changing political context of the pandemic. However, the direction of the effects largely changes when we flip the order of the trust outcome questions in the last three experiments, which sheds light on an underappreciated point: question‐order bias also seems to exist within batteries of seemingly similar outcome questions.
... By doing so, we expected to create a priming effect regarding past pressure experiences from participants. Primes are used in psychology research to selectively increase the accessibility of specific conceptions or pieces of information in memory [38], leading to changes in behavior. For instance, past research has shown that we can prime power in applicants for jobs, making them feel either powerful or powerless immediately before the writing of application letters or interviews, and either improving or worsening their application outcomes, respectively [39]. ...
Pressure for higher productivity and faster delivery is increasingly pervading software organizations. This can lead software engineers to act like chess players playing a gambit -- making sacrifices of their technically sound estimates, thus submitting their teams to time pressure. In turn, time pressure can have varied detrimental effects, such as poor product quality and emotional distress, decreasing productivity, which leads to more time pressure and delays: a hard-to-stop vicious cycle. This reveals a need for moving on from the more passive strategy of yielding to pressure to a more active one of defending software estimates. Therefore, we propose an approach to support software estimators in acquiring knowledge on how to carry out such defense, by introducing negotiation principles encapsulated in a set of defense lenses, presented through a digital simulation. We evaluated the proposed approach through a controlled experiment with software practitioners from different companies. We collected data on participants' attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intentions to perform the defense of their estimates in light of the Theory of Planned Behavior. We employed a frequentist and a bayesian approach to data analysis. Results show improved scores among experimental group participants after engaging with the digital simulation and learning about the lenses. They were also more inclined to choose a defense action when facing pressure scenarios than a control group exposed to questions to reflect on the reasons and outcomes of pressure over estimates. Qualitative evidence reveals that practitioners perceived the set of lenses as useful in their current work environments. Collectively, these results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its perceived relevance for the industry, despite the low amount of time required to engage with it.
... Unlike assimilation bias, contrast effects predict a negative association between the value of the first signal (e.g., yesterday's earnings surprise) and the subsequent judgment (e.g., value of an M&A deal). Bless and Burger (2016) and Förster, Liberman, and Kushel (2008) argue that assimilation effects are induced by a global (information) processing style whereby people form a relatively abstract representation. Those authors also argue that contrast effects are induced by a local processing style whereby people form a concrete representation. ...
An assimilation bias occurs when people’s evaluative judgment is positively influenced by a previously observed signal. We study this effect by examining investors’ appraisal of M&A deals announced 1 day after other firms in the same 1-digit SIC as the merging parties release earnings surprises. Consistent with assimilation effects, acquirers’ M&A announcement stock return initially correlates with the previous day’s earnings surprises. This effect reverses after 1 week. Assimilation generates other distortions as more positive surprises are related to increases in bid competition, takeover premiums, and withdrawn M&As. Evidence from IPOs corroborates the presence of assimilation effects in financial markets.
... As masculinity norms are broadening, an exclusive focus on agency could be perceived as extreme, unambiguous, and one-sided. When points of reference are characterized by such attributes, contrast effects can be the result (i.e., being pushed away from the point of reference) [76,77]. In the study by van Grootel and colleagues [74], we interpret another finding as a contrast effect: When male peers were said to perceive communal traits as most desirable for men, participants intended to hide communal task engagement the most. ...
Men are currently underrepresented in traditionally female care-oriented (communal) engagement such as taking parental leave, whereas they are overrepresented in traditionally male (agentic) engagement such as breadwinning or leadership. We examined to what extent different prototypical representations of men affect men’s self-reported parental leave-taking intentions and more generally the future they can imagine for themselves with regard to work and care roles (i.e., their possible selves). We expected prototypes of men that combine the two basic stereotype dimensions of agency and communion to increase men’s communal intentions. In two experiments (N1 = 132, N2 = 233), we presented male participants with contrived newspaper articles that described the ideal man of today with varying degrees of agency and communion (between-subjects design with four conditions; combined agentic and communal vs. agentic vs. communal vs. control condition). Results of Experiment 1 were in line with the main hypothesis that especially presenting a combination of agency and communion increases men’s expectations for communal engagement: As compared to a control condition, men expected more to engage in caretaking in the future, reported higher parental leave-taking intentions, and tended to expect taking longer parental leave. Experiment 2 only partially replicated these findings, namely for parental leave-taking intentions. Both experiments additionally provided initial evidence for a contrast effect in that an exclusive focus on agency also increased men’s self-reported parental leave-taking intentions compared to the control condition. Yet, exclusively emphasizing communion in prototypes of men did not affect men’s communal intentions, which were high to begin with. We further did not find evidence for preregistered mechanisms. We discuss conditions and explanations for the emergence of these mixed effects as well as implications for the communication of gendered norms and barriers to men’s communal engagement more broadly.
... Stimuli have a powerful influence on judgement and decision-making, being able to cause effects of either assimilation or contrast. When assimilation occurs, the introduction of an anchor influences judgement towards the positive direction (Bless & Burger, 2016). On the other hand, when contrast happens, the judgement of a certain target stimulus is inversely related to the values that accompany it. ...
This research aimed at investigating whether watching Brazilian advertising pieces that portray a sociocultural behavioral pattern called Brazilian jeitinho would influence participant’s subsequent behavior. One carried out an experiment in which 200 subjects watched and assessed three advertisement pieces. Upon recruitment, participants were informed that they would be taking part in a raffle for a gift card. The number of tickets received per participant was defined by a die-under-cup task. The more tickets they obtained, the higher the chance to receive the prize, providing an incentive to cheat. Afterwards, respondents took part in a task that defined the number of tickets that each would receive to participate in the raffle. Independent variables consisted in the manipulation of priming of jeitinho (video content: jeitinho or neutral) and privacy of the task (with or without privacy). On the other hand, the dependent variable consisted in the result obtained when participants rolled the dices that defined the number of tickets. One found a significant difference between the groups in which privacy was manipulated, indicating that the groups that performed the task aimed at measuring dishonesty with privacy actually tended to report lower values than the ones actually obtained, entailing an effect of contrast. This finding suggests that the implementation of public policies that utilize propaganda that portrays Brazilian jeitinho could reduce engagement in dishonest behavior among Brazilians.
... The accumulating knowledge about information accessibility and use (for reviews, see Bless & Burger, 2016;Loersch & Payne, 2016;Schwarz & Strack, 2016) provided a fruitful conceptual framework that has been widely adopted throughout the social and behavioral sciences, from economics (for a review, see Cohn & Mar echal, 2016), political science (for a review, see Ottati, Wilson, & Lambert, 2016), public opinion (Chong & Druckman, 2007;Iyengar, 1990), consumer research (for a review, see W€ anke, 2016), and cultural psychology (for reviews, see Oyserman, 2016;Oyserman & Lee, 2008) to research into aggression (for a review, see Benjamin & Bushman, 2016), religion (for a review, see Willard, Shariff, & Norenzayan, 2016), and survey measurement (Schwarz & Strack, 1991). ...
... Social roles are strongly related to the content of gender stereotypes (Eagly & Steffen, 1984), so reversing stereotypes is a way to challenge these oppressing roles for the ingroup. However, such stereotype reversal effects at the implicit level can be purely associative in nature, based on accessibility processes and not necessarily motivated (e.g., contrast effect; Bless & Burger, 2016;Herr, Sherman, & Fazio, 1983). On the contrary, ingroup bias as a preferential treatment for ingroup members is intrinsically motivated (Brewer, 1999). ...
Traditional roles are problematic for women because they constrain their life choices. Therefore, women have a vested interest in challenging them. We argue that women can resist pervasive traditional roles by showing automatic ingroup bias. In two studies we used an associative procedure to expose two groups of women to stereotypical vs. counter-stereotypical roles, and measured implicit ingroup bias with an evaluative decision task. Study 1 shows that women activated ingroup bias when they were exposed to stereotypical roles and targets appeared in a stereotype-congruent context (kitchen). Study 2 shows that automatic ingroup bias was activated only when gender roles were salient. Further, stereotypic role associations promote negative emotions, and increased persistence on a stereotype-relevant performance task in women.
... Altogether, the comparison outcome is defined as labile and dynamic because it depends on several factors that might vary from context to context. Recency effects, framing effects, priming, current needs and goals, as well as affect influence what and how internal and external information is being used (Bless & Burger, 2016). ...
People’s self-concept contributes to their sense of identity over time. Yet self-perception is motivated and serves survival and thus does not reflect stable inner states or accurate biographical accounts. Research indicates that different types of comparison standards act as reference frames in evaluating attributes that constitute the self. However, the role of comparisons in self-perception has been underestimated, arguably because of lack of a guiding framework that takes into account relevant aspects of comparison processes and their interdependence. I propose a general comparative model of self-perception that consists of a basic comparison process involving the individual’s prior mental representation of the target dimension, the construal of the comparison standard, and the comparison outcome representing the posterior representation of the target dimension. The generated dimensional construal is then appraised with respect to one’s motives and controllability and goes on to shape emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses. Contextual and personal factors influence the comparison process. This model may be informative in better understanding comparison processes in people’s everyday lives and their role in shaping self-perception and in designing interventions to assist people overcome undesirable consequences of comparative behavior.
... diminish or even reverse it. However, social psychology has documented both assimilation and contrast effects in various domains, contingent on a multitude of psychological moderators (for a recent brief review, see Bless & Burger, 2016). Also, the conceptually underspecified eating mechanism of the in-out effect does not provide highly constrained predictions regarding assimilation or contrast, nor does it offer testable process explanations. ...
Words for which the consonantal articulation spots wander from the front to the back of the mouth (inward) elicit more positive attitudes than words with the reversed order (outward). The present article questions the common theoretical explanation of this effect, namely an association between articulation movements and oral movements during ingestion and expectoration (inward resembles eating which is positive; outward resembles spitting which is negative). In 4 experiments (total N = 468), we consistently replicated the basic in-out effect; but no evidence was found supporting an eating-related underlying mechanism. The in-out effect was not modulated by disgust inductions (Experiments 1, 2, 4, and 10) or food deprivation (Experiment 3). In 6 further experiments (total N = 1,067), we explored a novel alternative explanation, namely that the in-out effect is simply a position-specific preference for front consonants over back consonants. In these experiments, we found in-out-like preference effects for fragments that lacked an actual front-to-back movement but featured only starting (e.g., B _ _ _ _) or ending (e.g., _ _ _ K) consonants (Experiments 6-8). Consonants that are articulated in the front of the mouth were generally preferred over those articulated in the back of the mouth, and this basic preference was stronger at the beginning of a word-like stimulus (Experiments 6-10), thus explaining the preference pattern of the in-out effect. The present evidence speaks against an eating-related (embodied) explanation and suggests a simple word-morphologic explanation of the in-out effect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... Altogether, the comparison outcome is defined as labile and dynamic because it depends on several factors that might vary from context to context. Recency effects, framing effects, priming, current needs and goals, as well as affect influence what and how internal and external information is being used (Bless & Burger, 2016). ...
Our self-concept contributes to our sense of identity over time. Yet, self-perception is motivated and serves survival and thus does not reflect stable inner states or accurate biographical accounts. Literature indicates that different types of comparison standards act as reference frames in evaluating attributes that constitute the self. However, the role of comparisons in self-perception has been underestimated, arguably due to lack of a guiding framework that takes into account relevant aspects of comparison processes and their interdependence. I propose a general comparative model of self-perception that consists of a basic comparison process involving the individual’s prior mental representation of the target dimension, the construal of the comparison standard, and the comparison outcome representing the posterior representation of the target dimension. The generated dimensional construal is then appraised with respect to one’s motives and controllability and goes on to shape emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses. Contextual and personal factors influence the comparison process. This model may be informative in better understanding comparison processes in our everyday life as well as in designing interventions to assist people overcome undesirable consequences of comparative behavior.
... Perdue 등(1990) Glaser & Banaji, 1999;Klauer et al., 1997;Spruyt et al., 2004 (Brewer & Gardner, 1996;Leonardelli & Toh, 2015). Brewer와 Gardner(1996) (Bless & Burger, 2016;Cadinu & Rothbart, 1996;Karpinski, 2004). 종합하면 '개인-관계-집단'의 표상 위계에서 '포함-배제'의 범주, '편애-폄하'의 평가가 역동 적임을 시사한다(예; Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999 ...
Three experiments were conducted to explore the interaction of pronoun’s number (singular and plural),
pronoun’s person (first and third), and emotional evaluation (positive and negative) using time-course
approach (e.g. SOA 150ms and 1000ms) and primed naming task. In Experiment 1, participants were
presented each pronoun as primes at SOA 150ms and were asked to response at emotional words which
were differed in emotional attributes. The results showed that the main effects of pronoun’ number,
pronoun’s person and emotional words were found and the interaction effects of pronoun’s person and
emotional words were also found. The interaction effects was obtained by the primed effect of first person
pronoun’s (‘I’ and ‘we’) positive evaluation. In Experiment 2, participants were presented each pronoun as
primes at SOA 1000ms and were asked to response at emotional words which were differed in emotional
attributes. The effects of any variables were not found. In Experiment 3, participants were presented
second-person singular pronouns and all plural pronouns as primes at SOA 150ms and were asked to
response at emotional words which were differed in emotional attributes. The results showed that the
effects of emotional words were found only at first-person plural pronoun ‘we’. These results showed that
the first-person singular pronoun ‘I’ and first-person plural pronoun ‘we’ were more primed at positive
words than negative words. These results were discussed from a point of view of multiple level
representations of social cognition.
... Finally, a given piece of accessible information may influence judgment in opposite directions, depending on its use [8; 15 ]. As Bless and Burger [ 16 ] review, information that is used in forming a representation of the target results in assimilation effects; in this case, the target is evaluated more positively, the more positive information comes to mind. However, the same information results in contrast effects when it is used in forming a representation of the standard against which the target is evaluated; in this case, the standard is more positive the more positive information comes to mind, resulting in more negative evaluations. ...
... In this sense, unrelated deliberate manipulation may determine the direction of one's social comparison mechanism. Mussweiler (2001) finds that asking participants to describe either the similarities or the differences of two pictures can trigger different directions of social comparison, perhaps via changes in the accessibility of either similar or dissimilar self-knowledge (Mussweiler, 2003Mussweiler, , 2007). In the SAM (Mussweiller, 2003 ), judges conduct an initial hypothesis test of whether the target (either the self or another person) is similar or dissimilar to the group standard. ...
Previous research on women's reactions to female body images in advertisements has been restricted to same race target women and models, and typically conducted among Western participants. The present research examines the combined effects of model race and size for the first time, and extends inquiry to Chinese consumers. Results across four experiments demonstrate that model race and size are potent informative cues that influence Chinese consumers’ self-esteem and advertising effectiveness. Studies 1a and 1b suggest that model race is an informative trigger predicting differential social comparison and subsequent self-esteem judgments for Chinese women, but has no effect on Chinese men's self-esteem. In addition, model size exerts differential impacts on Chinese women's and men's self-esteem. Study 2 shows that manipulation of the social comparison mechanism may outweigh that of race as an informative cue. Study 3 examines the relationship between model size and Chinese women's evaluative responses to advertisements. These findings not only contribute to the literature, but also offer practical guidelines for marketers advertising in China.
Recent technological advancements have empowered nonhuman entities, such as virtual assistants and humanoid robots, to simulate human intelligence and behavior. This paper investigates how autonomous agents influence individuals' perceptions and behaviors toward others, particularly human employees. Our research reveals that the socio‐emotional capabilities of autonomous agents lead individuals to attribute a humanlike mind to these nonhuman entities. Perceiving a high level of humanlike mind in the nonhuman, autonomous agents affects perceptions of actual people through an assimilation process. Consequently, we observe “assimilation‐induced dehumanization”: the humanness judgment of actual people is assimilated toward the lower humanness judgment of autonomous agents, leading to various forms of mistreatment. We demonstrate that assimilation‐induced dehumanization is mitigated when autonomous agents possess capabilities incompatible with humans, leading to a contrast effect (Study 2), and when autonomous agents are perceived as having a high level of cognitive capability only, resulting in a lower level of mind perception of these agents (Study 3). Our findings hold across various types of autonomous agents (embodied: Studies 1–2 and disembodied: Studies 3–5), as well as in real and hypothetical consumer choices.
Objective:
This research investigated the effect of social class on personal control beliefs.
Background:
Differences in personal control beliefs serve as a central theoretical explanation for social class differences in cognition, emotion, and behavior. However, prior empirical research has not yet conclusively demonstrated that personal control beliefs differ between social classes.
Method:
Across four studies (total N = 138,417), we investigated the link between social class and personal control beliefs with well-established measures of social class (e.g., ISEI, McArthur Scale),representative samples, and data that allow for causal conclusions (e.g., experimental, and longitudinal data).
Results:
We found that (a) higher social class was associated with higher personal control beliefs across 60 countries. Furthermore, we observed that (b) higher social class of parents was associated with higher personal control beliefs in their children, and that (c) experimentally induced higher (vs. lower) social class led to increases (vs. decreases) of personal control beliefs.
Conclusions:
Individuals from lower social classes consistently have weaker personal control beliefs than individuals from upper social classes. Social class differences in this fundamental personality characteristic are bound to have important consequences in various life domains (e.g., psychological and physical well-being, and academic success).
Human actions sometimes aim at preventing an event from occurring. How these to-be-prevented events are represented, however, is poorly understood. Recent proposals in the literature point to a possible divide between effect-producing, operant actions, and effect-precluding, prevention actions, suggesting that the control of operant actions relies on codes of environment-related effects whereas prevention actions do not. Here we report two experiments on this issue, showing that spatial features (Experiment 1) as well as temporal features (Experiment 2) of to-be-prevented events influence actions in the same way as corresponding features of to-be-produced effects. This implies that selecting and executing prevention actions relies on anticipated environmental changes, comparable to operant actions.
Although policy transparency is praised highly to promote citizen compliance, it sometimes loses its effect in practice due to the lack of scientific design. To better exploit policy transparency, this study examined how the usability of policy transparency promotes citizen compliance, and the role of perceived benefit and descriptive social norms in this mechanism. The results of an online survey experiment conducted in the urban renewal policy domain revealed that, in the implementation of the house expropriation policy, easy-to-understand policy transparency encourages citizen compliance better, since it promotes more perceived benefits. Furthermore, descriptive social norms were found to influence the way perceived benefits promote citizen compliance; more in detail, negative norms were found to increase, and positive norms to decrease, the role of perceived benefit, eventually influencing the effectiveness of policy transparency. This research is a breakthrough for the effectiveness of policy transparency, emphasizing the role of perceived benefit and descriptive social norms in policy compliance.
This article presents a meta-analysis of the impact of minimal exposure to affective stimuli on the emergence of enduring conscious affective feelings. Theories often assume that such affective feelings are linked to automatic appraisals of events (i.e. in the absence of an evaluative processing goal). However, few studies have tested this hypothesis. Moreover, they have provided divergent results. We propose a meta-analysis of these studies to get a clearer picture on this issue. The meta-analysis includes 22 studies (37 effect sizes; combined N = 2159) in which participants were repeatedly exposed to affective stimuli in the absence of an evaluative processing goal before their mood was measured. In this analysis, we focused on the type of stimulus presentation (i.e. visible vs. masked) as well as on the type of stimulus (i.e. faces, pictures, words). The results indicate that the effect of a stimulus is moderated by the visibility of the stimuli. Repeated exposure to visible stimuli leads to congruency effects (i.e. positive stimuli lead to positive feelings), whereas exposure to masked stimuli leads to contrast effects (i.e. positive stimuli lead to negative feelings). Moreover, these effects seem to be restricted to some types of stimuli, with no detectable effects of emotional faces.
Increasing knowledge and understanding of diversity and inclusion is a continuous process. Appropriately, the organizational chief diversity officer (CDO) provides leadership by implementing strategic business and planning process solutions. The CDO's role presents a unique opportunity for organizations to support the CDO with an onboarding and mentoring framework. Additionally, the role of the chief diversity officer is to mitigate workplace stress. Further, the impact of industrial and organizational psychology on cultural assimilation practices in the workforce improves the understanding of behavioral factors of group dynamics. As a result, group dynamics impact diversity and inclusion initiatives. Provided are recommendations to support CDOs in their execution of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives.
Exposure to a stimulus often increases an evaluation of a relevant object; however, the current research demonstrates that the opposite is true for “happiness.” The current paper shows that exposure to happiness (vs. neutral) primes leads consumers away from consuming happiness-claimed products because of a decrease in perceived happiness potential that consumers attribute to the products. In line with our theory, the negative effect of happiness primes on product evaluation for happiness-claimed products was found to be mitigated by several factors associated with a happiness goal pursuit facilitated by happiness primes, including happiness goal satiation, cognitive load, and motivation to seek happiness. Together, the present research advances our understanding of happiness and priming effects in consumer literature. In addition, this research provides managerial implications as to how marketers can use happiness cues to manage their marketing stimuli (e.g., advertisements, slogans, and package designs) in more efficient ways.
Background
Expectations of painful sensations constitute a core feature of chronic pain. An important clinical question is whether such expectations are revised when disconfirming experiences are made (e.g., less pain than expected). This study examined how people adjust their pain expectations when the experience of decreasing pain is expected vs. unexpected.
Methods
In a novel randomized between-subjects design, a subclinical sample of people who frequently experience pain was provided with painful thermal stimulations. Unbeknownst to participants, the temperature applied was decreased from trial to trial. Based on the experimental instructions provided, this experience of decreasing pain was expected in one condition (expectation-confirmation; n = 34), whereas it was unexpected in another (expectation-disconfirmation; n = 39).
Results
Perceived pain intensity was lower in the expectation-confirmation condition than in the expectation-disconfirmation condition (p = .014, ηp² = 0.083). The expectation-confirmation condition also showed a greater adjustment of their pain expectations than the expectation-disconfirmation condition (p = .046, ηp² = 0.047). Across groups, large expectation violations (i.e., less pain than expected) were associated with increases in pain tolerance and the ability to cope with pain at a one-week follow-up.
Conclusions
In terms of assimilation, perceived pain intensity was shaped in the direction of pain expectations. The greater adjustment of expectations in the expectation-confirming condition is consistent with a confirmation bias in pain perception. Though participants who experienced large discrepancies between expected and experienced pain were hesitant to adjust their pain expectations immediately, expectation violations increased their ability to cope with pain one week later, suggesting some beneficial longer-term effects of expectation violations.
In this book, 30 contributions provide a comprehensive overview of theories and findings from research on political attitudes and political behaviour, subdivided into the fields of ‘political communication’, ‘political attitudes’, ‘political participation’, ‘voting behaviour’ and ‘methods’.
Les effets d’amorçage comportemental ont fait l’objet de nombreuses recherches. Ces travaux ont révélé que l’activation incidente de concepts pouvait orienter le comportement des individus et que cette influence pouvait avoir lieu en dehors de la conscience. Toutefois, des critiques ont émergé à propos de ce champ de recherche, remettant en question la robustesse de certains types d’effets d’amorçage et la véracité de ces effets. L’identification des processus sous-jacents aux effets d’amorçage comportemental s’est alors imposée comme indispensable afin de mieux comprendre sous quelles conditions ils apparaissent et ainsi pourquoi ils font l’objet de difficultés de réplication. Ce travail de thèse a pour objectif d’apporter une contribution à l’identification des processus sous-jacents aux effets d’amorçage. A travers neuf expériences, nous avons testé d’une part, l’idée selon laquelle des caractéristiques méthodologiques (e.g., la durée d’exposition aux amorces) étaient propices à l’émergence de ces effets, d’autre part le rôle modérateur de certains facteurs (i.e., le concept de soi) dont une partie de la littérature suppose qu’ils sont impliqués dans ces effets. Les résultats montrent que le concept de soi pourrait être un déterminant de l’ampleur et de la direction des effets d’amorçage comportemental, selon l’implication de la conscience de soi ou de l’estime de soi. De plus, le niveau de perception des amorces semble être un candidat privilégié des modérateurs de l’amorçage comportemental. Dans l’ensemble, ces résultats fournissent des éléments afin de poursuivre l’investigation des mécanismes sous-jacents aux effets d’amorçage comportemental.
Immigrants experience identity shifts; they can identify with the new cultural group and, sometimes, identify less with their group of origin. Previous research suggests that participation in the new cultural group predicts these two identity shifts. However, these studies have exclusively used correlational methodologies. Furthermore, previous research ignored that when a group is negatively valued, individuals may not identify with it, even after participating in it, to preserve a positive social identity. This article tests with an experimental methodology whether participation recreated the identity shifts previously identified (greater identification with the new group and lower identification with the group of origin when perceiving dissimilarity). Furthermore, it tested how a group's value impacted these identity shifts following participation. Immigrants in Quebec (N = 184) either participated in Quebec's culture (watched hockey) or did not (watched basketball). Quebec's value was manipulated by changing whether Quebec won, tied, or lost the game. Compared to watching basketball, watching Quebec's team win or tie showed the hypothesized identity shifts, illustrating the importance of the new group's value when participating.
In der Politischen Kommunikation sind Frames allgegenwärtig, da die politische Realität oft spezifisch konstruiert wird. Kommunikatoren setzen dabei ihre Information in einen bestimmten Deutungsrahmen, um gewisse Stimmungen zu verbreiten. Sie ‚framen‘ damit das Thema gezielt und wollen so die Debatte um die jeweilige Angelegenheit leiten oder zumindest mitbestimmen. Dieses Lehrbuch bietet eine Einführung in das Verständnis von Frames und Framing-Strategien, es liefert eine Übersicht der Inhalte der vielfältigen und breitgefächerten Framing-Forschung sowie eine Grundlage für das wissenschaftliche Arbeiten mit Frames.
Der Inhalt
• Frames und Framing
• Framing als strategische Tätigkeit
• Techniken des strategischen Medien-Framings
• Ideologien und Frames
• Die Methode der Frame-Analyse
Die Zielgruppen
Studierende, Lehrende, Politiker, Beratungen, Kommunikationspraktiker
Der Autor
Dr. Michael Oswald ist Akademischer Rat am Lehrstuhl für Politikwissenschaft der Universität Passau, Associate Research Fellow und Lehrbeauftragter am John F. Kennedy Institut der Freien Universität Berlin und Faculty-Member bei CIFE (Int. Zentrum für Europäische Bildung).
We provide a review and a theoretically unifying model of framing effects. Beginning with a review of findings that prospect theory, fuzzy-trace theory, and traditional dual process models do and do not explain, we develop a model of framing based partly on Bless and Schwarz's (2010) inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast. Our model is the first of its kind to be applied to all three valence framing manipulations and presents common mechanisms explaining findings in the framing literature that were previously difficult to conceptualize within a single theory (e.g., matching effects and cognitive effort). The model also accounts for why all three framing manipulations are influenced by differences between holistic/contextual versus analytic processing as well as the presence, absence, and direction of effects produced by different versions of framing manipulations. It also predicts contrast effects (Implications and Future Directions section) and applies to manipulations involving a frame and judgmental target. Copyright
The current research explores whether multicultural experiences facilitate global processing style. We conducted two experiments in which participants were exposed to either a multicultural experience or a monocultural experience. They were required to either perform the Navon letter task (Experiment 1) or search for similarities or differences between two videos (Experiment 2). The experimental results showed that, compared to the participants exposed to a monocultural experience, those exposed to a multicultural experience had faster reaction times to global letters (Experiment 1) and tended to search for similarities (Experiment 2). This indicates that individuals with multicultural experiences facilitate a global processing style. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd, Asian Association of Social Psychology and Beijing Normal University. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd, Asian Association of Social Psychology and Beijing Normal University
How incidentally activated social representations affect subsequent thoughts and behaviors has long interested social psychologists. Recently, such priming effects have provoked debate and skepticism. Originally a special issue of Social Cognition, this book examines the theoretical challenges researchers must overcome to further advance priming studies and considers how these challenges can be met. The volume aims to reduce the confusion surrounding current discussions by more thoroughly considering the many phenomena in social psychology that the term “priming” encompasses, and closely examining the psychological processes that explain when and how different types of priming effects occur.
Presents an integrative model of the emergence, direction (assimilation vs. contrast), and size of context effects in social judgment.
Do people feel better or worse about themselves when working with someone who is better than they are? We present the first replication of the work of Stapel and Koomen (2005), who showed that being in a competitive vs. cooperative mindset moderates the effects of social comparison on self-evaluation. In Experiment 1, we present a close replication of Stapel and Koomen (2005, Study 2). Participants in competition/cooperation had to self-evaluate after receiving information about the personal characteristics of an upward/downward comparison target. In Experiment 2, we went further by providing feedback about both the comparison target and the self. Our results and a small-scale meta-analysis combining our experiments and Stapel and Koomen’s (2005) confirm that a competitive/cooperative mindset moderates the impact of social comparison on self-evaluation; nevertheless, the effect size we found across the two experiments is clearly more modest than the one found in Stapel and Koomen’s (2005) work.
In 4 experiments it was found that contrast effects in person perception depend on the type and extremity of the primed information. Two previous models of priming effects, the standard-of-comparison and the set-reset models, make opposing predictions for the consequences of prime extremity on contrast effects. In Experiments 1 and 2 it was found that each model is descriptively accurate but in response to different priming stimuli. Exemplar primes (e.g., Dracula) produced greater contrast when extreme than when moderate, a pattern consistent with the standard-of-comparison model. Trait term primes (e.g., malevolent) produced greater contrast when moderate than when extreme, which is consistent with the set-reset model. In Experiments 3 and 4 it was demonstrated that the mechanisms through which contrast is produced are distinct for the 2 types of primes. Standard-of-comparison contrast is more perceptual and is not disrupted by cognitive load; set-reset contrast is effortful and requires sufficient cognitive capacity.
A meta-analysis that included more than 1,100 effect sizes tested the predictions of three theoretical perspectives that explain evaluative extremity in social judgment: complexity-extremity theory, subjective group dynamics model, and expectancy-violation theory. The work seeks to understand the ways in which group-based information interacts with person-based information to influence extremity in evaluations. Together, these three theories point to the valence of person-based information, group membership of the evaluated targets relative to the evaluator, status of the evaluators' ingroup, norm consistency of the person-based information, and incongruency of person-based information with stereotype-based expectations as moderators. Considerable support, but some limiting conditions, were found for each theoretical perspective. Implications of the results are discussed.
© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
Feelings-as-information theory conceptualizes the role of subjective experiences – including moods, emotions, metacognitive experiences, and bodily sensations – in judgment. It assumes that people attend to their feelings as a source of information, with different feelings providing different types of information. Whereas feelings elicited by the target of judgment provide valid information, feelings that are due to an unrelated influence can lead us astray. The use of feelings as a source of information follows the same principles as the use of any other information. Most important, people do not rely on their feelings when they (correctly or incorrectly) attribute them to another source, thus undermining their informational value for the task at hand. What people conclude from a given feeling depends on the epistemic question on which they bring it to bear; hence, inferences from feelings are contextsensitive and malleable. In addition to serving as a basis of judgment, feelings inform us about the nature of our current situation and our thought processes are tuned to meet situational requirements. The chapter reviews the development of the theory, its core propositions and representative findings
Two experiments examined the effects of answering a question about a specific component of life satisfaction on respondents' assessment of their overall satisfaction with life. The results suggest that the use of primed information in forming subsequent judgments is determined by Grice's conversational norms. In general, answering the specific question increases the accessibility of information relevant to that question. However, the effect that this has on the general judgment depends on the way in which the two questions are presented. When the two questions are merely placed in sequence without a conversational context, the answer to the subsequent general question is based in part on the primed specific information. As a result, the answer to the general question becomes similar to that for the specific question (i.e. assimilation). However, this does not occur when the two questions are placed in a communication context. Conversational rules dictate that communicators should be informative and should avoid redundancy in their answers. Therefore, when a specific and a general question are perceived as belonging to the same conversational context, the information on which the answer to the specific question was based is disregarded when answering the general one. This attenuates the assimilation effect. The conditions under which these different processes occur are identified and experimentally manipulated, and the implications of these findings for models of information use in judgment are discussed.
In two experiments participants saw stereotype-incongruent information that was either high or low in variability. Following exposure participants generated distributions of group members from which central tendency and variability information was calculated. The comprehensive retrieval model (Garcia-Marques & Mackie, 1999) predicted greater change in perceived dispersion following high versus low variability incongruent information, but greater central tendency change following low versus high variability exposure. In Experiment 1 participants generated more variable distributions after exposure to high versus low variability inconsistent information and showed greater central tendency revision in the low compared to high variability condition, supporting predictions. These effects were replicated in Experiment 2, which demonstrated similar effects for congruent information.
We report two studies investigating the impact of how a stereotype-inconsistent exemplar is categorized. In both studies, participants were presented with a description about a specific target and worked on different categorization tasks. Categorization tasks eliciting an inclusion of the target into the group category resulted in less stereotypic judgments about the group and in more stereotypic judgments about the target compared to categorization tasks eliciting exclusion of the target from the category. The results suggest that under exclusion conditions, a stereotype-inconsistent exemplar can increase stereotypic judgments about the group (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 shows that these categorization effects are attenuated if participants' processing motivation is increased at the encoding stage. The importance of a range of psychological variables that can influence the categorization, and thus the impact, of atypical exemplars is discussed.
The accessibility of a category in memory has been shown to influence the selection and interpretation of social information. The present experiment examined the possibility that information relevant to a trait category (hostility) presented outside of conscious awareness can temporarily increase that category's accessibility. 108 male undergraduates initially performed a vigilance task in which they were exposed unknowingly to single words. Either 0, 20, or 80% of those words were semantically related to hostility. In an unrelated 2nd task, 20 Ss read a behavioral description of a stimulus person (SP) that was ambiguous regarding hostility and then rated the SP on several trait dimensions. The amount of processing Ss gave to the hostile information and the negativity of their ratings of the SP both were reliably and positively related to the proportion of hostile words to which they were exposed. Several control conditions confirmed that the words were not consciously perceived. It is concluded that social stimuli of which people are not consciously aware can influence conscious judgments. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The role of cognitive resources in stereotype maintenance was examined. It was hypothesized that people's cognitive resources would condition the maintenance of stereotypes by affecting the ability to dismiss inconsistent target information. In Experiment 1, distracted and nondistracted participants formed an impression of a deviant target. As predicted, distraction was associated with less stereotypical views about the group. Experiment 2 replicated this finding using 3 deviant targets and 4 levels of distraction. Results also revealed that the perceived atypicality of the deviants mediated stereotype maintenance. Experiment 3 further showed that stereotypes remained intact only when participants were not distracted and when they had also received neutral information about the target. The discussion focuses on the role of cognitive resources in stereotyping and the effectiveness of exposure to disconfirmation in achieving stereotype change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted 3 experiments to determine the affect of reminiscing on reported well-being. 51 students at a professional school for translators and interpreters in Exp I and 36 undergraduates in Exp II recounted events that they had experienced as positive and pleasant or as negative and unpleasant. In Exp III, 64 undergraduates wrote down a particularly positive or negative event and then asked to explain either why or how this event occurred. Ss in all 3 experiments were then asked to rate their happiness and life satisfaction. Overall results indicate that Ss' ratings of general life satisfaction depended not only on the hedonic quality of the life experiences they happened to recall but also on the way in which they thought about them. Specifically, the hedonic quality of present life events influenced Ss' judgments of well-being in the same direction. The hedonic quality of past events, however, had a congruent impact on well-being judgments only when thinking about them elicited affect in the present but otherwise had a contrast effect on these judgments. Two factors were found to determine if thinking about the past elicits affect: whether Ss describe the events vividly and in detail or only mention them briefly, and whether Ss describe how the events occurred rather than why they occurred. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Set/reset (L. L. Martin; see record
1987-01092-001) hypothesis that contrast demands more cognitive effort than does assimilation was examined. In Exp. 1, the impressions of distracted Ss showed assimilation toward blatantly primed concepts, whereas the impressions of nondistracted Ss showed contrast. In Exp. 2, Ss told that their ratings would be lumped into a group average showed assimilation, whereas Ss told that their ratings would be examined individually showed contrast. In Exp. 3, the impressions of Ss low in need for cognition showed assimilation, whereas the impressions of Ss high in need for cognition showed contrast. Exp. 1 also showed that the results were not due to differences in recall of the target information, and Exp. 3 showed that the results were not due to differences in recall of the priming stimuli. Together, the results suggest that the processes involved in contrast demand more cognitive effort than do the processes involved in assimilation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted 3 studies to test the hypothesis that judgments of average females' attractiveness or dating desirability will be adversely affected by exposing judges to extremely attractive prior stimuli (i.e., judgments will show a "contrast effect"). Study 1 was a field study in which 81 male dormitory residents watching a popular TV show, whose main characters were 3 strikingly attractive females, were asked to rate a photo of an average female (described as a potential blind date for another dorm resident). These Ss rated the target female as significantly less attractive than did a comparable control group. Two other studies with 146 undergraduates demonstrated analogous effects in a more controlled laboratory setting. In addition, the 3rd study indicated a direct effect of informational social influence on physical attractiveness judgments. Implications are discussed with particular attention to mass media impact. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In 4 experiments it was found that contrast effects in person perception depend on the type and extremity of the primed information. Two previous models of priming effects, the standard-of-comparison and the set–reset models, make opposing predictions for the consequences of prime extremity on contrast effects. In Experiments 1 and 2 it was found that each model is descriptively accurate but in response to different priming stimuli. Exemplar primes (e.g., Dracula) produced greater contrast when extreme than when moderate, a pattern consistent with the standard-of-comparison model. Trait term primes (e.g., malevolent) produced greater contrast when moderate than when extreme, which is consistent with the set-reset model. In Experiments 3 and 4 it was demonstrated that the mechanisms through which contrast is produced are distinct for the 2 types of primes. Standard-of-comparison contrast is more perceptual and is not disrupted by cognitive load; set–reset contrast is effortful and requires sufficient cognitive capacity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Many personality trait terms can be thought of as summary labels for broad conceptual categories that are used to encode information about an individual's behavior into memory. The likelihood that a behavior is encoded in terms of a particular trait category is postulated to be a function of the relative accessibility of that category in memory. In addition, the trait category used to encode a particular behavior is thought to affect subsequent judgments of the person along dimensions to which it is directly or indirectly related. To test these hypotheses, undergraduates first performed a sentence construction task that activated concepts associated with either hostility (Exp I, 96 Ss) or kindness (Exp II, 96 new Ss). As part of an ostensibly unrelated impression formation experiment, Ss later read a description of behaviors that were ambiguous with respect to hostility (kindness) and then rated the target person along a variety of trait dimensions. Ratings of the target along these dimensions increased with the number of times that the test concept had previously been activated in the sentence construction task and decreased with the time interval between these prior activations and presentation of the stimulus information to be encoded. Results suggest that category accessibility is a major determinant of the way in which social information is encoded into memory and subsequently used to make judgments. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In 3 experiments on impression formation, participants received categorical (occupation) and individuating information (behavior) about target persons presented either in random order (mixed presentation) or in blocks (blockwise presentation). Presentation mode should be a metainformational cue from which judges infer the purpose of the task. Mixed presentation is a cue for differentiation between categories, and the integration of a category-specific typical case leads to reduced differentiation within categories, assimilation, and, hence, enhanced differentiation between categories. Blocked presentation is a cue for differentiation within categories, and consideration of category boundaries as a frame of reference leads to enhanced differentiation within categories and a concomitant contrast effect. The findings of Experiments 1 and 2 supported this reasoning. Experiment 3 showed, in addition, that an explicit task instruction and the metainformational cue lead to equivalent results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two experiments investigated the judgmental and behavioral consequences of priming a social category. In the first experiment, assimilation and contrast effects of judgment of a target person's hostility obtained following priming with exemplars of, respectively, moderate and extreme levels of the category hostility. The second experiment replicated these findings and, in addition, demonstrated that subjects then behaved consistently with their evaluations of the target person in a social interaction. The results are discussed in terms of the social interaction literature, with category accessibility serving as a means of creating an expectancy for the target's behavior.
This chapter provides a brief overview of the relevant research and explores its implications for survey response. It first reviews core features of Western (individualist) and East Asian (collectivist) cultures, and summarizes key differences in basic cognitive and communicative processes. Then, the chapter provides an overview of respondents’ tasks (question comprehension, recall, judgment, response formatting, and editing), and addresses how individualism and collectivism may influence each of these. In discussing this body of research, the chapter uses the terms individualism and collectivism when discussing between-country comparisons, assuming that between-country differences are due in part to chronic differences in levels of individualism and collectivism. For clarity, when discussing the results of priming tasks and experiments which highlight the processes underlying such average cross-national differences, the chapter describes the participants as using individual- and collective mindsets.
Question answering requires close attention to the common ground to determine what the questioner wants to know. Because attentiveness to others is more likely to be a self-defining goal when the self is thought of as interdependent with others rather than independent of others, we predicted that self-construal influences attentiveness to the common ground. In Experiment 1, participants' temporary self-construal was manipulated through a priming technique. As predicted, interdependence-primed participants were more likely than independence-primed participants to take the recipient's knowledge into account and avoided providing redundant information in a self-administered questionnaire. Drawing on chronic differences in self-construal, Experiment 2 replicated these findings with participants from independent (Germany) and interdependent (China) cultures. Throughout, participants' differential attentiveness to the common ground resulted in differential question order effects, raising important methodological issues for cross-cultural research.
In the past century, a few hundred articles have been published about subliminal perception and applications such as subliminal persuasion. Subliminal persuasion refers to the subliminal presentation of stimuli by people (for example, advertisers) who intentionally try to influence our behavior. James Vicary claimed in 1957 that he increased the sales of popcorn and cola after subliminally flashing "Eat Popcorn" and "Drink Coke" in a New Jersey cinema. This chapter argues that subliminal persuasion and other applications of subliminal stimulation should be investigated, not ignored. It also present arguments for why it is impossible, or at least difficult, to maintain that all (important) behavior should be the result of conscious thought. A distinction is made between themanipulation of attitudes by subliminal evaluative conditioning, the influence of subliminal messages on consumer behavior, and the influence of subliminal messages on health.
A theoretical model of the emergence of assimilation and contrast effects in part-whole question sequences is presented. When
one specific question precedes a general question and the two are not assigned to the same conversational context, respondents
use the information primed by the specific question to form the general judgment. This results in part-whole assimilation
effects. If both questions are perceived as belonging to gether, however, conversational norms of nonredundancy prohibit the
repeated use of information that has already been provided in response to the specific question when making the general judgment.
Accordingly, respondents interpret the general question to refer to aspects other than the ones covered by the specific question. Contrast effects may emerge in that case under specified conditions. If several
specific questions precede the general question, however, the general one is always interpreted as a request for a summary
judgment. This results in assimilation effects, even under conditions that would foster contrast effects if only one specific
question is asked. The model is supported by experimental data and provides a coherent account of apparently contradictory
findings previously reported in the survey literature.
The authors examine how judgmental priming effects are shaped by comparisons. Specifically, they suggest that concept priming involves spontaneous activation of concept-consistent standards, which are then spontaneously compared to the judgmental target. In 6 studies, they used a variety of priming methods (contextual cue, subliminal priming, indirect priming) to test these notions of spontaneous standard activation and spontaneous comparison. Study 1 demonstrates that priming a trait concept activates concept-consistent standards. Study 2 suggests that these activated standards contribute to priming effects. If alternative standards that are not particularly consistent with the primed concept are activated, priming effects diminish. Studies 3-6 show that the magnitude and direction of priming effects depend on the intensity and the type of the engaged comparison. Specifically, Study 3 demonstrates that the magnitude of a priming effect depends on the intensity of comparative processing. Studies 4 through 6 show that the direction of a priming effect (assimilation vs. contrast) depends on whether judges engage in a similarity or dissimilarity testing comparison mechanism--a factor which has been found to shape comparison consequences in other domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).
Two experiments showed that when subjects believed a group to be heterogenous, they based their liking for a particular group member on their liking for the group as a whole, independently of and in addition to the target's behavior, and regardless of the target's typicality. When they believed the group to be homogenous, however, they treated the target's typicality as a favorable or unfavorable attribute, which affected their evaluation. The latter subjects used their group stereotype as a standard of comparison in judging the implications of the target's behavior for a trait to which it was relevant. All subjects' stereotypes had a positive influence on judgments of stereotyped-related traits for which the target's behavior was uninformative. A conceptualization is proposed to account for these findings.
In three experiments, impressions of an ambiguously described stimulus person were assimilated toward the implications of primed concepts when performance of the priming task was interrupted, but were contrasted with these implications when performance of the priming task was allowed to continue to completion. In addition, when the primed concepts were evaluatively consistent (Experiment 1), assimilation and contrast were observed on both prime-related and prime-unrelated dimensions. When the primed concepts were evaluatively inconsistent (Experiment 2), however, these shifts in impression were observed only on dimensions directly related to the primed concepts. When no concepts descriptively relevant to the stimulus information were primed (Experiment 3), the assimilation and contrast were relative to the favorableness of a primed general evaluative person concept. Taken together, these results suggest that a concept may be accessible to an individual and may be relevant to target information, yet not be used to encode that information; that assimilation and contrast may occur for reasons other than the discrepancy between the target and the contextual stimuli on the dimension of judgment; and that individuals may use the evaluative implications of their person representation as a cue in deciding which of several equally applicable, equally accessible descriptive concepts to use in interpreting information about a person.
Two experiments showed that when subjects believed a group to be heterogeneous, they based their liking for a particular group member on their liking for the group as a whole, independently of and in addition to the target's behavior, and regardless of the target's typicality. When they believed the group to be homogeneous, however, they treated the target's typicality as a favorable or unfavorable attribute, which affected their evaluation. The latter subjects used their group stereotype as a standard of comparison in judging the implications of the target's behavior for a trait to which it was relevant. All subjects' stereotypes had a positive influence on judgments of stereotype-related traits for which the target's behavior was uninformative. A conceptualization is proposed to account for these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Stereotypes may function as standards against which we judge individual members of stereotyped groups. This is the basic premise of the shifting standards model (Biernat, Manis, & Nelson, 1991), from which a complex set of predictions is derived: Members of negatively stereotyped groups may be judged, communicated about, and treated more or less positively than members of contrasting social groups, depending on the judgment or decision at hand. The chapter reviews research documenting a “signature” shifting standards effect, whereby judgments of targets on common-rule scales assimilate to stereotypes but show null or contrastive effects in subjective language. This idea is elaborated in the context of communication, whereby members of negatively stereotyped groups may be described relatively favorably in subjective language (because of lower standards), at the same time that both “interpreters” and communicators leave the communicative exchange with stereotype-consistent views. Standards themselves may also have different implications—either leniency or stringency for members of negatively stereotyped groups—depending on whether they reference minimum expectations or confirmatory requirements. Despite the apparent positivity that results when targets are evaluated against low standards, the use of shifting standards may contribute to the maintenance of stereotypes over time and to confusion and inconsistency in the feedback targets receive. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the role of motivation in moderating shifting standards effects, and possible means of reducing the tendency to shift standards.
Observed in 3 experiments that impressions of an ambiguously described stimulus person were assimilated toward the implications of primed concepts when performance of the priming task was interrupted, but they were contrasted with these implications when performance of the priming task was allowed to continue to completion. In Exp I, with 36 female undergraduates, when the primed concepts were evaluatively consistent, assimilation and contrast were observed on both prime-related and prime-unrelated dimensions. In Exp II, with 40 female undergraduates, when the primed concepts were evaluatively inconsistent, these shifts in impression were observed only on dimensions directly related to the primed concepts. In Exp III, with 44 undergraduates, when no concepts descriptively relevant to the stimulus information were primed, the assimilation and contrast were relative to the favorableness of a primed general evaluative person concept. Results suggest that (1) a concept may be accessible to an individual and may be relevant to target information, yet not be used to encode that information; (2) assimilation and contrast may occur for reasons other than the discrepancy between the target and the contextual stimuli on the dimension of judgment; and (3) individuals may use the evaluative implications of their person representation as a cue in deciding which of several equally applicable, equally accessible descriptive concepts to use in interpreting information about a person. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Distrust poses a challenge to human cognition because it signals that information from the environment should not be taken at face value. Accordingly, in the present research, we argue and show that distrust, both as a chronic disposition and as a contextual factor, blocks accessibility effects. We report five studies in which distrust is either measured (Studies 2 and 3) or manipulated (Studies 1, 4 and 5), and test the "distrust-blocks-accessibility hypothesis" on both verbal and non-verbal accessibility effects. We first elucidate the nature of the distrust mindset and show that distrust inherently entails the activation of alternatives to the original accessible concept thus undermining the preeminence of the prime (Study 1). We then show that distrust blocks accessibility using the "Donald" task (Study 2), the "Halo Effect" task (Study 3), an embodiment paradigm (Study 4), and an applied context of web advertising (Study 5). We conclude that the human mind is sensitive and flexible enough to block any influence from the environment if it seems unreliable. We discuss the novel implications of this perspective for both distrust and accessibility research.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
This chapter presents an integrated understanding of various impression formation processes. The chapter introduces a model of impression formation that integrates social cognition research on stereotyping with traditional research on person perception. According to this model, people form impressions of others through a variety of processes that lie on a continuum reflecting the extent to that the perceiver utilizes a target's particular attributes. The continuum implies that the distinctions among these processes are matters of degree, rather than discrete shifts. The chapter examines the evidence for the five main premises of the model, it is helpful to discuss some related models that raise issues for additional consideration. The chapter discusses the research that supports each of the five basic premises, competing models, and hypotheses for further research. The chapter concludes that one of the model's fundamental purposes is to integrate diverse perspectives on impression formation, as indicated by the opening quotation. It is also designed to generate predictions about basic impression formation processes and to help generate interventions that can reduce the impact of stereotypes on impression formation.
Psychological researchers have examined a broad array of biases and shortcomings of social perceivers. Less attention has been paid to how people react when they become concerned about the possibility of bias and attempt to correct or overcome the potential for bias. An early approach was to think of bias correction as “subtracting” information or reactions that are identified as coming from the biasing factor instead of the target. An alternative approach is to conceptualize bias correction as guided by social perceivers' naïve theories or perceptions of the bias at work. The subtraction theories were designed to deal with the assimilative biases typical of early priming experiments, but theory-based corrections can readily deal with either assimilative or contrastive biases. We describe both types of correction theories, with a focus on the empirical support for theory-based correction (and especially for the Flexible Correction Model). We also identify future directions for research on theory-based correction.
This chapter describes the role of naïve theories of bias in bias correction in the flexible correction model. The notion of bias correction was reviewed across a variety of research domains. Corrections are often the result of people consulting their naive theories of the influence of potentially biasing factors on their perception of the target. This view differs from competing views of bias correction because a view of corrections based on perceivers' naive theories of bias allows for a more flexible set of corrections than those proposed by other current models of bias removal. The chapter illustrates that flexible correction model (FCM) principles demonstrate the relevance of the perspective to a variety of research areas (including persuasion, attribution, impression formation, stereotyping, and mood). Finally, this chapter hopes that research and theory based on flexible correction notions will help to build a unifying framework within which correction processes in many areas of psychology can be investigated and explained.
Four experiments found that positive and negative affect dictated whether primed social categories and trait concepts led to assimilation or contrast. This influence was further found to be flexibly responsive to the momentary activation of a global or local focus. When a global focus was dominant, positive affect resulted in assimilation to primed traits and social categories, and negative affect resulted in contrast. But, when a local focus was dominant, the opposite pattern of assimilation and contrast as a consequence of positive and negative affect was observed. These results are consistent with the more general view that positive and negative affect signal the value of currently accessible response tendencies and are, therefore, flexibly responsive in their influence cognition to changing situations and mental contexts.
The last forty years of social science research have produced over 12,000 articles on priming. The range, complexity, and novelty of priming effects are hard to comprehend, let alone explain, using a single model or perspective. In this review, we discuss content priming and process priming effects. We then propose an integrative model that can account for the combined results.
Two studies investigated the effects of the presentation of stereotype-inconsistent information on stereotype change. The implications of three cognitive models of schema change—the “bookkeeping,” “conversion,” and “subtyping” models (Weber & Crocker, 1983)—were considered. Experiment 1 varied the pattern of stereotype-inconsistent information (concentrated in a few group members, dispersed across many, or intermediate between the two) to compare versions of these models. Trait ratings showed the greatest stereotype change when the stereotype-inconsistent information was dispersed across group members. Typicality measures showed the slight disconfirmers of the dispersed condition to be considered more typical of the group than the strong disconfirmers of the concentrated condition. This was emphasised by a sorting task: in the concentrated condition, the stereotype-disconfirmers were more strongly isolated from the rest of the group than in the dispersed conditions. Multiple regression analyses revealed that only the perceived typicality of disconfirmers mediated stereotype change. Experiment 2 replicated the main findings using microcomputer presentation and also varied the order of stereotypic trait ratings and typicality judgments. Again trait ratings showed the greatest stereotype change in the dispersed condition and reading times were longer for disconfirmers than confirmers, but only in the dispersed condition. Overall, these studies give strong support to a prototype version of the subtyping model.
Social cognition research has closely examined the processes that are involved in the correction for contaminating influences on judgment. Little is known, however, about how a contaminating influence is detected in the first place. To remedy this shortcoming, we propose a source-monitoring perspective on the detection of bias. This framework suggests that contamination is more likely to occur if its source is similar to the target source. Because judgment processes often involve elaborate internal processing of information, knowledge that is internally generated rather than externally provided is less likely to be seen as contaminating. As a consequence, judgments are more likely to be consistent with the implications of internally generated than externally provided knowledge. The results of two studies using different self-generation procedures (i.e., generating antonyms and solving anagrams) are consistent with this prediction. They demonstrate that in a blatant priming paradigm, judges only correct for the influence of externally provided primes (which yields contrast) but not self-generated primes (which yields assimilation). The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the literature on knowledge-accessibility effects, source monitoring, and judgmental correction.
Subjects either were or were not asked to recall the names of politicians who had been involved in a scandal and subsequently evaluated the trustworthiness of politicians in general and of three specific exemplars. Answering the scandal question decreased judgments of trustworthiness of politicians in general but increased perceived trustworthiness of specific exemplars. Thus, an assimilation effect was obtained when the target category 'politicians in general" invited inclusion of the scandal politicians in the temporary representation formed of the target. In contrast, the primed politicians could not be included in the representations formed of specific individuals. In this case, they were used as a standard of comparison, resulting in contrast effects. These findings are consistent with the inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects, which emphasizes the role of categorization processes in the construction of targets and standards.
Consciousness of a priming event at the time information about the event is retrieved from memory is argued to make a qualitative difference as to the consequences of the prime for subsequent social judgments. Two experiments are reported that provide evidence bearing on this hypothesis. Experiment 1 demonstrated that whether or not subjects can recall any of the priming stimuli presented in a first task dramatically influences which of two evaluatively dissimilar primed constructs they subsequently use in their categorizations of a target description. Subjects who could recall one or more primes showed contrast effects with regard to the more accessible construct, whereas subjects who could not recall any primes showed assimilation effects. Experiment 2 showed that interruption of the priming task resulted in assimilation effects for both the recall and the no-recall subjects. Together, these findings suggest that the function of consciousness of the priming events is to enable subjects to process subsequent information relevant to the primed constructs more flexibly. The results of both studies are discussed in terms of their relevance for theoretical distinctions between episodic and semantic memory and between automatic and controlled cognitive processing.
When people perceive a response (or outcome), whether their own or another person's, they represent it as being about something, and this thing that the response is about is inferred to be the source of the response. The first section of this article discusses natural assumptions underlying the operation of this aboutness principle and describes the problems with its use, illustrated by such well-established cases of social-cognitive shortcomings as the correspondence bias, representativeness error, misattribution, accessibility bias, and saying-is-believing effect. The second section uses the aboutness principle to review lay psychological theories discussed in this special issue, including people's theories of causality, stability, and change in personal attributes, conditions for valid memories or judgments, group attribute clusters, and persuasive influences.
Although African-Americans as a group are economically disadvantaged compared to the White majority group, there are numerous salient counterexamples of Black affluence. How do media images of highly successful African-Americans affect Whites′ beliefs about the economic or political status of African-Americans as a whole? Three experiments are reported that begin to address this question by surreptitiously activating thoughts about specific exemplars of African-American success and observing the consequences for a measure of perceived discrimination against Blacks. Contrary to the Enlightened Racism perspective, which claims that images of affluent African-Americans are taken by White audiences as evidence of a lack of discriminatory barriers to Black success, Experiment 1 revealed that prior activation of a successful, well-liked Black exemplar resulted in increased perceptions of discrimination in contemporary society. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and showed further that it is limited to successful exemplars who are well liked; successful exemplars about whom subjects had more neutral attitudes did not produce any changes in perceptions of discrimination. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that the effect of successful, well-liked exemplars vanishes when people first think about the fact that the exemplars are atypical members of the group. These findings are discussed in terms of a generalized appraisal process in which momentarily salient outgroup exemplars influence intergroup attitudes, which in turn affect judgments and beliefs about the group via an attitude heuristic.
In the present study, subjects had to generate an evaluative judgment about a target person on the basis of his behaviour that had both positive and negative implications. In a previous phase of the study that was ostensibly unrelated to the judgment task, the relevant trait categories were primed. Subsequently, half of the subjects were reminded of the priming episode. Consistent with earlier research (e.g. Lombardi, Higgins and Bargh, 1987; Newman and Uleman, 1990) that used memory of the priming events as a correlational measure, a contrast effect was found under the ‘reminding’ condition and assimilation resulted when subjects were not reminded of the priming episode. This pattern of results is interpreted as the consequence of corrective influences.
Two experiments investigated whether the direction of priming effects depends on the processing stage at which the individual links the prime to a trait that is applicable to the evaluation of an ambiguously described target person. In line with previous research, it is hypothesized that assimilation effects will emerge when primes are processed in terms of a trait concept that is applicable to the encoding task. However, when the primes are not processed in applicable trait terms, they may still affect subsequent Judgments if the individual recalls the prime when judging the target along a trait dimension. In this case, the primes may serve as an anchor, resulting in contrast effects. Two experiments, in which subjects were primed with names of prototypically nice or hostile famous individuals under instructions that did or did not prompt subjects to process the prime in applicable trait terms, supported these hypotheses. Implications for the emergence of priming effects in everyday social interaction are discussed.
Two experiments investigated the effects of priming (activation of a category by unobtrusive exposure to exemplars of that category) on subsequent judgments in an unrelated task. Subjects were primed with one of four levels of ferocity (size) in the course of a “color perception” experiment, and were later asked to judge the ferocity (size) of real (unambiguous) and unreal (ambiguous) animals. An interaction between ambiguity of judged stimuli (real vs unreal animals) and extremity of primed exemplars (moderate vs extreme levels of ferocity or size) was revealed. Assimilation effects (judgments consistent with the primed category) occurred only when moderate exemplars were primed and ambiguous stimuli judged. Contrast effects occurred when extreme exemplars were primed and ambiguous stimuli judged and, irrespective of extremity of the primed exemplar, when unambiguous stimuli were judged. The results are interpreted in terms of an integration of social judgment and social cognition perspectives.
The inclusion/exclusion model provides an integrative framework for conceptualizing the emergence of assimilation and contrast effects in evaluative judgment. The model assumes that feature-based evaluative judgments require a mental representation of the object of judgment (target) and of a standard to which the target is compared. Both representations are context sensitive and based on the information that is most accessible at the time. The way in which accessible information influences the judgment depends on how it is used. Information that is used in forming a representation of the target results in assimilation effects; information that is used in forming a representation of the standard results in contrast effects. How information is used depends on (i) individuals' beliefs about whether the information was brought to mind by some irrelevant influence, (ii) the information's perceived representativeness for the target, and (iii) conversational norms that influence the perceived appropriateness of information use. We summarize the core assumptions of the inclusion/exclusion model, review empirical evidence bearing on it, and highlight its integrative nature.
We investigated how the perceived typicality of context information for a target category moderates whether that information produces assimilation or contrast in the target evaluation. To manipulate context information, we increased the accessibility of either positive or negative exemplars. These exemplars were pretested to seem moderately typical with respect to the target category if participants were not provided with additional instructions. To manipulate perceived typicality, we provided different instructions so that participants categorized the same activated exemplar as either typical or atypical. Infomation that was perceived as typical resulted in assimilation effects, whereas information that was perceived as aypical resulted in contrast effects. The results showed that the very same context may result in assimilation or contrast as a function of the categorization decisions that operate on the context information.
Three studies investigated the interplay between processing capacity and reliance on accessibility experiences versus reliance on accessible content. Participants low in processing capacity were more likely to rely on the experience of ease versus difficulty, whereas participants high in processing capacity were more likely to base their judgment on the accessible content information. This result was robust across two different judgmental domains and was further supported by the assessment of processing latencies during judgment formation as an indicator of the underlying processes. In combination, the reported findings suggest that reliance on ease-of-retrieval experiences is particularly likely in situations of low processing capacity.