When do people learn likes and dislikes from co-occurrences? A dual-force perspective on evaluative conditioning

Bibliographic Data

ID9005801
AuthorsLea M Sperlich (0000-0001-5513-0230, University of Cologne, corresponding author), Christian Unkelbach (0000-0002-3793-6246, University of Cologne)
Year2022
Volume103
Pages104377-104377
Publication date2022-07-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Experimental Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-1031 • E-ISSN: 1096-0465
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104377
OpenAlexW4285081807
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited99

Evaluative Conditioning (EC) research shows that people learn their likes and dislikes due to the co-occurrence of stimuli (CS and US) in the environment. Most recent EC research addressed processes underlying this phenomenon: how do people acquire their likes and dislikes? We address the question of when people learn from co-occurrences. To understand when learning occurs rather than how it occurs, we apply a dual-force perspective (Bless & Fiedler, 2006). We propose that the environment provides a bottom-up force, for example, via spatial and temporal closeness of CS and US. The organism provides a top-down force, for example, by active inferences or existing knowledge about CS and US. We propose that these forces jointly determine when people learn from co-occurrences. We tested this dual-force perspective by creating experimental conditions that should lead to EC effects from both associative and propositional EC process models but should prevent EC effects from a dual-force perspective. Across four pre-registered laboratory experiments (N = 568) and two pre-registered online experiments (N = 440), we found that changing the top-down force weakened and eliminated (Experiments 1–3) or reinstated EC effects (Experiment 4), using a backward (Experiments 1–4) or forward conditioning procedure (Experiment 5–6), while keeping the environmental bottom-up force constant (Experiment 6). Independent of the how question (e.g., associative or propositional), these results support the dual-force perspective as a framework to predict when people learn their likes and dislikes from the co-occurrence of CS and US in the environment

Associative learning · Closeness · Cognitive psychology · Conditioning · Dual (grammatical number · Epistemology · Perspective (graphical · Phenomenon · Statistics · Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Mathematics · Memory and Neural Mechanisms · Psychology · Social Psychology

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