Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a key effect in attitude formation, leading to changes in the liking of neutral attitude objects due to their pairing with positive or negative stimuli. Despite EC's significance, current theories and most empirical findings are limited to stimulus pairings with a single affective stimulus at a time. In contrast, social environments often involve more complex combinations of affective stimuli. In this article, we introduce a novel framework grounded in information integration research to understand how conditioned attitudes develop in the presence of multiple affective stimuli. Through 10 experiments with different designs, measures, materials, and pairing procedures, we find that individuals' conditioned attitudes follow the average valence of all affective stimuli present with a stronger weighting of negative stimuli. This weighted averaging rule bears two implications for EC in more complex stimulus combinations. First, EC effects are nonmonotonous, such that additional stimuli of the same valence do not produce incremental EC effects. Second, EC effects are interdependent, such that the impact of one stimulus is weakest when accompanied by another negative stimulus and strongest when no other affective stimulus is present. We examine different cognitive processes underlying this weighted averaging rule, including potential differences in pairing memory or changes in the affective stimuli's valence when other stimuli are present. Our findings present a novel theoretical perspective on EC and offer valuable insights into attitude change from stimulus co-occurrences in stimulus-rich environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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评价条件反射中多个无条件刺激的相互作用：通过刺激共现形成态度的加权平均框架。


评价条件反射 （EC） 是态度形成的关键效应，由于中性姿态物体与积极或消极刺激配对，导致中性姿态物体的喜好发生变化。尽管 EC 很重要，但目前的理论和大多数实证发现仅限于一次与单个情感刺激的刺激配对。相比之下，社会环境通常涉及更复杂的情感刺激组合。在本文中，我们介绍了一个基于信息整合研究的新框架，以了解条件性态度在存在多种情感刺激的情况下是如何发展的。通过对不同设计、测量、材料和配对程序的 10 个实验，我们发现个体的条件性态度遵循所有情感刺激的平均效价，其中负面刺激的权重更强。这种加权平均规则对更复杂的刺激组合中的 EC 有两个含义。首先，EC 效应是非单调的，因此相同价的额外刺激不会产生增量的 EC 效应。其次，EC 效应是相互依存的，因此当一种刺激伴有另一种负面刺激时，其影响最弱，而当不存在其他情感刺激时，其影响最强。我们检查了这个加权平均规则背后的不同认知过程，包括配对记忆的潜在差异或存在其他刺激时情感刺激效价的变化。我们的研究结果为 EC 提供了新的理论观点，并为在刺激丰富的环境中刺激共现的态度变化提供了有价值的见解。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。