Contingency Awareness in Evaluative Conditioning: Investigations Using Subliminal Stimulus Presentations

Evaluative conditioning (EC) describes a change in preference towards a formerly neutral stimulus (Conditioned Stimulus; CS) after this stimulus is paired with a valent stimulus (Unconditioned Stimulus; US), in the direction of the valence of the US. Evaluative conditioning is proposed as a mechanism of automatic preference acquisition in dual-process theories of attitudes (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). An automatic route to preference acquisition entails that people do not need to be aware of the CS-US contingency in order for EC effects to develop. To experimentally investigate whether EC effects persist without peoples’ awareness, stimuli (e.g., the CS) are presented subliminally (i.e., too briefly to be consciously perceived). When the CS is presented subliminally, contingency awareness between CS and US can be ruled out. Hence, EC effects with subliminal CSs would support theories claiming that contingency awareness is not necessary for EC effects to occur. Studies demonstrating an EC effect with subliminally presented stimuli are reviewed and the stability of the described subliminal EC effect is evaluated. A series of replication studies and additional experiments were conducted to investigate possible boundary conditions for EC effects to occur with subliminally presented stimuli. Specifically, it was tested whether the following features would be beneficial for EC effects with subliminally presented stimuli: (I) goal-relevance during the learning procedure and a relation between CS and US (II) subliminal US presentation with additional counter-attitudinal information (III) choice between CSs after the learning phase as a potentially more sensitive measure of conditioning effects and (IV) a simultaneous presentation of CS and US. Across the experiments, indications for the absence of EC effects with subliminal stimuli were discovered. Additional findings hint to the possibility that subliminal EC effects that were previously found, might have been based on briefly presented—but visible—stimulus presentations. The findings lead to the conclusion that EC does not form automatically. Theoretical implications about the nature of EC are discussed

Documentation of online surveys (Version 1.0)

This guideline on documentation of online surveys should provide guidance to researchers that aim at documenting the process of an online survey data collection. The collection of empirical data is an essential part of the scientific process. It is, therefore, important to comprehensively document how scientific data was collected. The information included in such a description will enable others to critically evaluate the data collection procedure and make replication studies possible. The guideline at hand attempts to provide a comprehensive list of aspects important for the documentation of an online survey: General aspects, details of the data collection preparation, the data collection phase, and the data processing are included in the guideline

GLES Open Science Strategie

Das hier vorliegende Dokument beschreibt die strategische Ausrichtung der German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) zur Förderung von Open Science (Offene Wissenschaft). Hierbei wird anhand von vier Grundpfeilern des Konzepts von Open Science - Open Methodology, Open Data, Open Source und Open Access - dargestellt, in welchen Bereichen die GLES derzeit gut abschneidet, in welchen Bereichen noch Verbesserungspotentiale vorhanden sind und welche Maßnahmen eingeleitet werden sollen, um die GLES nach Open Science Grundsätzen auszurichten. Die Umsetzung dieser Maßnahmen ist als langfristiger Prozess gedacht, bei dem existierende und neue Arbeitsprozesse sich am Ideal einer offenen Wissenschaftspraxis orientieren sollen. Ziel der hier vorgestellten Strategie soll es sein, sowohl Prozesse der Datenerhebung und Datenaufbereitung offen und transparent zu gestalten, als auch Forschende aktiv beim Praktizieren einer offenen Wissenschaft zu unterstützen. Das Dokument wurde von den Autor*innen in enger Rücksprache mit dem gesamten GLES Team bei GESIS und der Koordinierungsgruppe (KG) der GLES verfasst

Workshop - Introduction to version control using Git

Slides of the git workshop during SIPS 2019 at Rotterda

Talks & R

Slides of Workshops and Talk

No Evaluative Conditioning Effects with Briefly Presented Stimuli

Evaluative Conditioning (EC) changes the preference towards a formerly neutral stimulus (Conditioned Stimulus; CS), by pairing it with a valent stimulus (Unconditioned Stimulus; US), in the direction of the valence of the US. When the CS is presented subliminally (i.e., too briefly to be consciously perceived), contingency awareness between CS and US can be ruled out. Hence, EC effects with subliminal CSs would support theories claiming that contingency awareness is not necessary for EC effects to occur. Recent studies reported the absence of EC with briefly presented CSs when both CS and US were presented in the visual modality, even though the CSs were identified at above-chance levels. Challenging this finding, Heycke and colleagues (2017) found some evidence for an EC effect with briefly presented visual stimuli in a cross-modal paradigm with auditory USs, but that study did not assess CS visibility. The present study attempted to replicate this EC effect with different stimuli and a CS visibility check. Overall EC for briefly presented stimuli was absent, and results from the visibility check show that an EC effect with briefly presented CSs was only found, when the CSs were identified at above-chance levels

EVALUATIVE CONDITIONING WITH SIMULTANEOUS AND SEQUENTIAL PAIRINGS UNDER INCIDENTAL AND INTENTIONAL LEARNING CONDITIONS

Two studies investigated whether evaluative conditioning (EC) is modulated by pairing schedule (simultaneous vs. sequential) and by the nature of the orienting task. We tested the prediction that simultaneous (but not sequential) EC is obtained without awareness, and whether this modulatory effect supports dual-process theories of attitude acquisition. Results replicated the finding of a simultaneous EC effect in the absence of unconditioned stimulus (US) identity memory; in contrast, sequential EC effects depended on the presence of US identity memory. Yet, both EC effects were larger in the presence than in the absence of US identity memory and depended on the presence of US valence memory. Whereas the findings are consistent with dual learning processes, they can also be accounted for by a single learning process. Conceptual, theoretical, and methodological requirements for distinguishing between single- and dual-process models of EC are discussed

Co-Occurrence and Relational Information in Evaluative Learning: A Multinomial Modeling Approach

Dual-process theories of evaluative learning suggest that evaluative representations can be formed via two functionally distinct mechanisms: automatic formation of associative links between co-occurring events (associative learning) and nonautomatic generation and truth assessment of mental propositions about the relation between stimuli (propositional learning). Single-process propositional theories reject the idea of automatic association formation, attributing all instances of evaluative learning to propositional processes. A central question in the debate between the two theories concerns the mechanisms underlying unqualified effects of stimulus co-occurrence when the relation between the co-occurring stimuli suggests an evaluation that is opposite to the one implied by the observed co-occurrence (e.g., sunscreen prevents skin cancer). Addressing interpretational ambiguities in previous research on the differential impact of co-occurrence and relational information on implicit and explicit measures, the current research used a multinomial modeling approach to investigate the functional properties of the effects of co-occurrence and relational information on a single measure of evaluative responses. Although the moderating effects obtained for relational information are consistent with the predictions of the two theories, the obtained properties of co-occurrence effects pose an explanatory challenge to both dual-process and single-process propositional theories. The findings demonstrate the value of multinomial modeling in providing deeper insights into the functional properties of the effects of co-occurrence and relational information, which impose stronger empirical constraints on extant theories of evaluative learning

Preregistration

This component includes all elements that are part of the preregistration of the study