Lecture 4: Affective Influences on attitudes Flashcards
What is integral affect?
Feelings associated with an attitude object
What is incidental affect?
Affective state is not linked to an object that can influence judgement e.g., Mood
Incidental emotions are the emotions we carry with us to the decision that have nothing to do with the decision. For example, the way you feel because you had an extremely frustrating drive to work, or because you had an argument with your partner before leaving for work that morning
What is mere exposure?
psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them
What is conditioning?
Different ways where integral affect can be paired with an attitude
What is propinquity?
the state of being close to someone or something; proximity.
What did Festinger et al., (1950) find about physical vs functional distance and friendships
1950s: there was a large increase in individuals attending university
Looked at how the design of Uni apartments influences the way ppl form friendships
Ppl are more likely to report being close friends w/ the ppl their in the same unit as their friends
Physical distance & functional distance had an effect on friendships
What did Festinger et al., (1950) find about physical vs functional distance and friendships pt 2.
Positive affect was associated with these interactions
If a person’s door was only 1 away - 41% close friends vs 4 doors away - 10% close
The more we interact with a stimulus, on its won the more we like it
Positive affect that influences our evaluation
What did Zajonc (1968) find about mere exposure?
Different ppl would be shown diff. Types of stimuli at different times
Ppts asked to rate if they liked it
Mere exposure, even without interaction can produce a positive attitude toward a novel stimulus
Repeated exposure to novel stimuli elicited positive feelings
Moreland & Beach (1992) methodology
4 female confederates posed as students in class, and entered the class
Each confederate attended a different amount of lectures
Ppts had to rate how much they liked each person
Moreland & Beach (1992) findings
The more ppt saw the confederates in the class over the term the more they rated they liked them
Asked ppts when they had made these judgements if they were aware they had seen these ppl before
The effect wasn’t contingent on explicitly being aware they had seen the confederates before
What did Montoya et al., (2017) find about stimuli we don’t like?
Even though ppl dislike the negative stimuli, increasing exposure doesn’t increase liking for objects we dislike
weaker effect found for repeated presentation of disliked stimuli (than liked stimuli)
When does mere exposure occur?
-With complex stimuli
-With explicit & implicit measures of attitudes
-Across cultures, species, range of stimuli
-With more visual stimuli rather than audio
What does mere exposure result in?
Repeated exposure can reduced uncertainty; elicits less threat
Stimuli that we are repeatedly exposed to
Perceptual fluency - defined as the subjective feeling of ease or difficulty while processing perceptual information
What did Monohan et al., 2000 find about exposure and affect?
Study 1
Participants were presented with images - 25 images each shown once (single-exposure condition) or with five repetitions of 5 stimuli (repeated-exposure condition)
Previously exposed stimuli were rated most positively and novel different stimuli least positively. All stimuli were rated more positively in the repeated-exposure condition than in the single-exposure condition
What did Monohan et al., 2000 find about exposure and affect?
Study 2
Study 2 examined whether affect generated by subliminal repeated exposures transfers to unrelated stimuli
After a subliminal exposure phase, affective reactions to previously exposed stimuli, to new but similar stimuli, and to stimuli from a different category were obtained
What did Carr et al., 2017 find about exposure & affect?
Evidence that familiarity with faces we’ve seen before influences their perceived attractiveness and happiness
Evidence that thinking we’ve seen something predicts liking even if we haven’t