Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-v2srd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-28T16:31:57.199Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social-psychological evidence for the effective updating of implicit attitudes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2015

Thomas C. Mann ,
Jeremy Cone  and
Melissa J. Ferguson
Thomas C. Mann
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. tcm79@cornell.edu mjf44@cornell.edu http://melissaferguson.squarespace.com/
Jeremy Cone
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520. jeremy.cone@yale.edu
Melissa J. Ferguson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. tcm79@cornell.edu mjf44@cornell.edu http://melissaferguson.squarespace.com/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent findings in social psychology show how implicit affective responses can be changed, leading to strong, fast, and durable updating. This work demonstrates that new information viewed as diagnostic or which prompts reinterpretations of previous learning produces fast revision, suggesting two factors that might be leveraged in clinical settings. Reconsolidation provides a plausible route for making such reasoning possible.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 38 , 2015 , e15
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

1.

Thomas C. Mann and Jeremy Cone contributed equally to the preparation of this commentary.

References

Amodio, D. M. & Devine, P. G. (2006) Stereotyping and evaluation in implicit race bias: Evidence for independent constructs and unique effects on behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91:652–61.Google Scholar
Bouton, M. E. (1994) Context, ambiguity, and classical conditioning. Current Directions in Psychological Science 3(2):49–53. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.ep10769943.Google Scholar
Cameron, C. D., Brown-Iannuzzi, J. L. & Payne, B. K. (2012) Sequential priming measures of implicit social cognition a meta-analysis of associations with behavior and explicit attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Review 16(4):330–50.Google Scholar
Cone, J. & Ferguson, M. J. (2015) He did what? The role of diagnosticity in revising implicit evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108(1):37–57. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000014.Google Scholar
Cone, J. & Ferguson, M. J. (in preparation) Change we must believe in: How implicit attitude revision depends on the perceived likelihood of the change.Google Scholar
Deutsch, R., Gawronski, B. & Strack, F. (2006) At the boundaries of automaticity: Negation as reflective operation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91(3):385–405. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.3.385.Google Scholar
Ferguson, M. J., Mann, T. C. & Wojnowicz, M. (2014) Rethinking duality: Criticisms and ways forward. Invited chapter. In: Dual process theories of the social mind, ed. Sherman, J., Gawronski, B. & Trope, Y., pp. 578–94. Guilford.Google Scholar
Galdi, S., Arcuri, L. & Gawronski, B. (2008) Automatic mental associations predict future choices of undecided decision-makers. Science 321(5892):1100–102.Google Scholar
Gawronski, B. & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2006) Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin 132(5):692–731. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.692.Google Scholar
Gawronski, B. & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2011) The associative–propositional evaluation model: Theory, evidence, and open questions. In: Advances in experimental social psychology, first edition, vol. 44, pp. 59–127. Elsevier. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-385522-0.00002-0.Google Scholar
Gawronski, B. & Cesario, J. (2013) Of mice and men: What animal research can tell us about context effects on automatic responses in humans. Personality and Social Psychology Review 17(2):187–215. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1177/1088868313480096.Google Scholar
Gawronski, B., Deutsch, R., Mbirkou, S., Selbt, B. & Strack, F. (2008) When “Just Say No” is not enough: Affirmation versus negation training and the reduction of automatic stereotype activation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44:370–77.Google Scholar
Gawronski, B., Rydell, R. J., Vervliet, B. & De Houwer, J. (2010) Generalization versus contextualization in automatic evaluation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 139(4):683–701. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/a0020315.Google Scholar
Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L. & Banaji, M. R. (2009) Understanding and using the implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97(1):17.Google Scholar
Kawakami, K., Dovidio, J. F., Moll, J., Hermsen, S. & Russin, A. (2000) Just say no (to stereotyping): Effects of training in the negation of stereotypic associations on stereotype activation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78(5):871–88.Google Scholar
Mann, T. C. & Ferguson, M. J. (in press) Can we undo our first impressions? The role of reinterpretation in reversing implicit evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.Google Scholar
McNulty, J. K., Olson, M. A., Meltzer, A. L. & Shaffer, M. J. (2013) Though they may be unaware, newlyweds implicitly know whether their marriage will be satisfying. Science 1119–20.Google Scholar
Oswald, F. L., Mitchell, G., Blanton, H., Jaccard, J. & Tetlock, P. E. (2013) Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: A meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 105(2):171–92.Google Scholar
Perugini, M., Richetin, J. & Zogmaister, C. (2010) Prediction of behavior. Handbook of implicit social cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications 10:255–78.Google Scholar
Petty, R. E., Tormala, Z. L., Briñol, P. & Jarvis, W. B. G. (2006) Implicit ambivalence from attitude change: An exploration of the PAST model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90(1):21–41. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.21.Google Scholar
Rydell, R. J. & McConnell, A. R. (2006) Understanding implicit and explicit attitude change: A systems of reasoning analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91(6):995–1008. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.995.Google Scholar
Rydell, R. J., McConnell, A. R., Mackie, D. M. & Strain, L. M. (2006) Of two minds: Forming and changing valence-inconsistent implicit and explicit attitudes. Psychological Science 17(11):954–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rydell, R. J., McConnell, A. R., Strain, L. M., Claypool, H. M. & Hugenberg, K. (2007) Implicit and explicit attitudes respond differently to increasing amounts of counterattitudinal information. European Journal of Social Psychology 37(5):867–78. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloman, S. A. (1996) The empirical case for two systems of reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 119(1):3–22.Google Scholar
Strack, F. & Deutsch, R. (2004) Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8(3):220–47.Google Scholar
Towles-Schwen, T. & Fazio, R. H. (2006) Automatically activated racial attitudes as predictors of the success of interracial roommate relationships. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42(5):698–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar