Illusory-correlation effects on implicit and explicit evaluation

Research suggests that people sometimes perceive a relationship between stimuli when no such relationship exists (i.e., illusory correlation). Illusory-correlation effects are thought to play a central role in the formation of stereotypes and evaluations of minority versus majority groups, often leading to less favorable impressions of minorities. Extant theories differ in terms of whether they attribute illusory-correlation effects to processes operating during learning (belief formation) or measurement (belief expression), and whether different evaluation measures should be differentially sensitive to illusory-correlation effects. Past research found mixed evidence for dissociative effects of illusory-correlation manipulations on measures of implicit (i.e., automatic) and explicit (i.e., controlled) evaluation. Four high-powered studies obtained illusory-correlation effects on explicit evaluations, but not implicit evaluations probed with an Implicit Association Test, Evaluative Priming Task, and Affect Misattribution Procedure. The results are consistent with theories that attribute illusory-correlation effects to processes during belief expression

Contextualized attitude change

The current chapter reviews the findings of an ongoing research program suggesting that changes in attitudes can be limited to the context in which counterattitudinal information was learned. The reviewed findings indicate that, although counterattitudinal information may effectively influence evaluations in the context in which this information was learned, previously formed attitudes may continue to influence evaluations in any other context. According to the representational theory of contextualized attitude change, such patterns of contextual renewal occur because exposure to expectancy-violating information enhances attention to context, which leads to an integration of the context into the representation of expectancy-violating counterattitudinal information. The chapter reviews research that (a) tested novel predictions derived from the representational theory of contextualized attitude change, (b) explored the nature of contextualized representations, and (c) investigated the boundary conditions of contextualized attitude change. Theoretical challenges, future directions, and implications for basic and applied research are discussed