DLEAEP · Effects of Different Learning Experiences on Automatic Evaluative Processes

Effects of Different Learning Experiences on Automatic Evaluative Processes

The funding from this grant supported my efforts in researching evaluative processes as a part of my position as a social psychology lecturer in the psychology department at Ben-Gurion University (Israel). My research has focused on evaluative learning: the psychological processes that contribute to the formation of attitudes. The main focus was on discrepancies between the effects of the same learning experience on automatic versus deliberate evaluation. Deliberate evaluation involves intentional, effortful cognitive processes that produce judgment whether the target object is liked or disliked. Automatic evaluation involves fast, unintentional and uncontrolled processes. Current models assume that automatic evaluation is more sensitive than deliberate evaluation to co-occurrence between the target object and affective stimuli, and deliberate evaluation is more sensitive than deliberate evaluation to the validity of the co-occurrence as evidence regarding the evaluation of the target object. If additional information implies that the co-occurrence does not indicate that the target object and the affective stimuli are of the same valence, deliberate evaluation would reflect that additional information more than automatic evaluation would. My lab has tested those assumptions with various experimental procedures. We found evidence that supports but also slightly modifies this basic assumption, explaining its boundary conditions, and adding more details about the processes that might contribute to the assumed discrepancy. One the main forms of information that we studied is relational information. Relational information indicates that the objects are associated to each other, but also explains why they and how they are associated to each other. For instance, the relational information “The bacteria ended the inflammation” indicates that the bacteria and the inflammation are associated to each other, but also explains why they are associated. My lab’s research found evidence that relational information forms associations (mental links in memory) that later influence automatic and deliberate evaluation. Supporting contemporary theory, we found that automatic evaluation is more sensitive than deliberate evaluation to the associative information (bacteria is associated with inflammation), and deliberate evaluation is more sensitive than automatic evaluation to relational information (the bacteria ends the inflammation). Perhaps most dramatic was our finding that people showed automatic preference to objects that ended pleasant events over objects that ended unpleasant events. Later, we also found what conditions are required for such counter-intuitive automatic preference to occur, how it can be eliminated or increased, and even—in which conditions that unexpected preference can be found even with deliberate evaluation. My labs also studied how different learning experiences influence different measures of automatic evaluation, and also developed a new theoretical framework to generate hypotheses about the effects of stimuli co-occurrence on subsequent evaluations. Thus, the main contribution of my work was in basic science: contributing to the accumulation of scientific knowledge about psychological evaluative processes. In the period of this project, I have been fully integrated into my host institution (Ben-Gurion University), was promoted from lecturer to senior lecturer, and was awarded tenure. I was also awarded with several grants and an esteemed fellowship award for new researchers (Alon fellowship).

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