Wanting, liking, and preference construction.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Decision Science

Background:

• Preference construction theories posit context-dependent preferences.
• Berridge's (1999) work distinguishes between 'wanting' (incentive value) and 'liking' (emotional value).
• Existing research often assumes a unified preference representation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether individuals possess multiple preference representations for an object within a single context.
• To test the hypothesis that incentive value and likability can diverge concurrently.
• To explore awareness and accessibility of these distinct representations.

Main Methods:

• Study 1: Behavioral measures to assess incentive value and likability of faces.
• Studies 2A & 2B: Self-report measures to evaluate concurrent access to distinct representations.
• Utilized controlled experimental designs to isolate preference components.

Main Results:

• A divergence between incentive value and likability of facial stimuli was demonstrated behaviorally.
• Participants were aware of and could access both incentive and emotional values concurrently.
• Findings support the existence of dual, accessible preference representations within a single context.

Conclusions:

• Individuals can maintain separate representations of an object's motivational and emotional value.
• This challenges the assumption of unified preferences and has implications for pleasure-seeking models.
• Findings contribute to expectancy-value theories by highlighting distinct value components.