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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评价性调节中多种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。


评价性条件反射（EC）是态度形成的关键效应，由于中性态度对象与积极或消极刺激的配对，导致中性态度对象的喜好发生变化。尽管 EC 具有重要意义，但当前的理论和大多数实证研究结果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，我们介绍了一种基于信息整合研究的新颖框架，以了解在存在多种情感刺激的情况下条件态度如何发展。通过 10 项不同设计、测量、材料和配对程序的实验，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大。在更复杂的刺激组合中，这种加权平均规则对 EC 有两个影响。首先，EC 效应是非单调的，因此相同价态的额外刺激不会产生增量 EC 效应。其次，EC效应是相互依存的，因此一种刺激的影响在伴随另一种负面刺激时最弱，而在没有其他情感刺激存在时最强。我们研究了这种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。我们的研究结果提出了关于 EC 的新颖的理论视角，并为刺激丰富的环境中刺激同时发生的态度改变提供了有价值的见解。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。