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. 2021 Dec;28(6):2057-2063.
doi: 10.3758/s13423-021-01969-y. Epub 2021 Jul 8.

An event-coding account of attitudes

Bernhard Hommel  1   2   3 , Niek Stevenson  4
Affiliations

An event-coding account of attitudes

Bernhard Hommel et al. Psychon Bull Rev. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Attitudes (or opinions, preferences, biases, stereotypes) can be considered bindings of the perceptual features of the attitudes' object to affective codes with positive or negative connotations, which effectively renders them "event files" in terms of the Theory of Event Coding. We tested a particularly interesting implication of this theoretical account: that affective codes might "migrate" from one event file to another (i.e., effectively function as a component of one while actually being part of another), if the two files overlap in terms of other features. We tested this feature-migration hypothesis by having participants categorize pictures of fictitious outer space characters as members of two fictitious races by pressing a left or right key, and to categorize positive and negative pictures of the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) as positive and negative by using the same two keys. When the outer space characters were later rated for likability, members of the race that was categorized by means of the same key as positive IAPS pictures were liked significantly more than members of the race that was categorized with the same key as negative IAPS pictures - suggesting that affective feature codes from the event files for the IAPS pictures effectively acted as an ingredient of event files for the outer space characters that shared the same key. These findings were fully replicated in a second experiment in which the two races were replaced by two unfamiliar fonts. These outcomes are consistent with the claim that attitudes, opinions, and preferences are represented in terms of event files and created by feature binding.

Keywords: Attitudes; Opinion; Social cognition; Theory of event coding.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Three exemplars from each of the two fictitious races used in Experiment 1 and the two fonts used in Experiment 2
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Likability ratings (with 95% confidence intervals) of members of the two fictitious races used in Experiment 1 and the two fonts used in Experiment 2
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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