Dissociating contingency awareness and conditioned attitudes: Evidence of contingency-unaware evaluative conditioning.

• DOI: 10.1037/a0026477
• Publication Date: 2011-12-27T15:41:31Z
• Authors: Mandy Hütter; Steven Sweldens; Christoph Stahl; Christian Unkelbach; Karl Christoph Kl...
• Keywords: Contingency; Associative learning; Association (psychology)

Whether human evaluative conditioning can occur without contingency awareness has been the subject of an intense and ongoing debate for decades, troubled by a wide array methodological difficulties. Following recent innovations, available evidence currently points to conclusion that effects do not awareness. In simulation, we demonstrate, however, these innovations are strongly biased toward requires awareness, confounding measurement memory with conditioned attitudes. We adopt process-dissociation procedure separate attitude components. 4 studies, parameter is validated using existing attitudes applied probe contingency-unaware conditioning. A fifth experiment incorporates time-delay manipulation confirming dissociability The results indicate produce conscious contingencies. Implications theories associative learning discussed.