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Published on: January 5, 2018
Counterconditioning: an effective technique for changing conditioned preferences
Inneke Kerkhof1, Debora Vansteenwegen, Frank Baeyens
1Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Belgium. Inneke.Kerkhof@psy.kuleuven.be
Abstract:
The evidence for the effectiveness of counterconditioning as a strategy for changing conditioned preferences is rather scarce and inconclusive. The present experiment reinvestigated this issue and compared the effect of further conditioning, extinction, and a counterconditioning procedure on recently acquired conditioned preferences in a picture-taste paradigm. Self-report and affective priming data indicated that whereas further conditioning and extinction trials were ineffective in fully eliminating the previously acquired evaluations, the counterconditioning treatment did succeed in doing this. A follow-up valence assessment revealed that all these effects persisted after a 7-day delay period.
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