Evidence suggestive of uncontrollable attitude acquisition replicates in an instructions-based evaluative conditioning paradigm: Implications for associative attitude acquisition

When presented with neutral stimuli (i.e., CSs) paired with valent ones (i.e., USs), individuals may prove unable to fully reverse the influence of the US on the impression they form about the CS. In a high-powered, pre-registered experiment, we revisited this uncontrollable EC effect in the context of an instruction-based EC procedure. Specifically, standard or reversed learning instructions were given to participants along with two sets of CSs (i.e., unfamiliar consumer products) told to be paired later with positive or negative USs. Evaluative ratings of the CSs were then immediately collected in the absence of direct exposure to CS-US pairings. Fully replicating effects found in the standard (i.e., experienced) EC paradigm, (i) the absolute EC effect was larger in the standard than reversed learning condition, and (ii) outcomes from Multinomial Processing Tree modelling suggested both controllable and uncontrollable EC effects. These findings imply that uncontrollable EC effects cannot be confidently interpreted as evidence for the operation of associative attitude learning