Operant evaluative conditioning

Abstract

Two experiments investigated an evaluative transfer from actions producing pleasant and unpleasant outcomes to novel stimuli that were assigned to those actions in a subsequent stimulus-response task. Results showed that a fictitious social group was liked more when this group was assigned to the action previously associated with pleasant outcomes relative to the other action. This evaluative transfer from operant contingencies was observed although the actions did not generate outcomes during the stimulus-action pairing. It is concluded that operant contingencies can be used for preference construction because they specify the existence of a relation between specific actions and particular valenced events. Implications for mental process theories of preference formation and motivated perception are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).