Generalization versus contextualization in automatic evaluation.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Automatic evaluations exhibit varied characteristics: robustness, malleability, and context-dependency.
• Disparate findings on automatic evaluations suggest underlying representational differences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test a representational account explaining when automatic evaluations reflect initial, counterattitudinal, or mixed information.
• To investigate the role of attention to context during information encoding.

Main Methods:

• Four experiments were conducted to test the representational account.
• Manipulated attention to contextual cues during the encoding of initial and counterattitudinal evaluative information.
• Examined automatic evaluations in different contexts to observe renewal and occasion setting effects.

Main Results:

• Attention to context during encoding determines storage in context-free or contextualized representations.
• Initial experiences are stored context-free when attention is low, while counterattitudinal information is stored contextualized when attention is high.
• Contextualized counterattitudinal information influences evaluations in specific contexts (occasion setting), while initial experiences resurface in new contexts (renewal effect).
• Context salience during encoding impacts the persistence and context-dependency of automatic evaluations.

Conclusions:

• The representational account successfully explains the malleability and context-dependency of automatic evaluations.
• Findings have implications for understanding learning, memory, and attitude change.
• Interventions in applied settings can leverage these principles to modify automatic evaluations.