Running Head: Implicit Misattribution Model of EC The Implicit Misattribution Model of Evaluative Conditioning

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to a change in one’s attitude toward an object based on its contiguous pairing with other positive or negative objects. EC can, in principle, occur through multiple mechanisms, some more and some less thoughtful. We argue that one relatively lowthought route through which EC produces evaluative change is implicit misattribution. Our Implicit Misattribution Model (IMM) is premised on research indicating: a) attributional thinking is pervasive and relatively automatic, b) affective experiences are pervasive and relatively automatic, and c) errors in automatic attributional processing can lead to misattribution of affect from one object to another, resulting in the latter object taking on the affect produced by the former. Research employing the “surveillance paradigm” we developed provides support for the model, particularly its key moderating variable, source confusability. We further discuss assumptions of the model in terms of encoding, storage, and retrieval/application of the conditioned attitude, as well as the role of contingency awareness and other central issues in the EC literature. Implicit Misattribution Model 3 The Implicit Misattribution Model of Evaluative Conditioning Opening Observations Attitudes are positive and negative evaluations, stored in memory, that provide a summary of what is good and bad about all manner of objects, from people to products to positions on politics. Under specific conditions, they are reliable predictors of behavior. Thus, attitudes are an essential component to our understanding of the mind (Cooper, Blackman, & Keller, 2016). Naturally, a fundamental question surrounding attitudes is their origins. The field of social psychology, once defined as the study of attitudes (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918), has for decades pursued this question from a variety of theoretical views with correspondingly diverse methodological approaches (see Cooper et al., 2016; Maio & Haddock, 2014, for reviews). Attitude researchers widely agree that attitudes are determined by multiple mechanisms, from thoughtful, belief-based reasoning to simple, associative linkages (not to mention genetic and evolved mechanisms). The various theories of attitude formation make unique predictions about the conditions under which a given mechanism of attitude formation, as opposed to other mechanisms, might operate. Accordingly, the mechanisms through which attitudes form are inextricably linked to the contexts in which those mechanisms presumably operate. This is also the case with evaluative conditioning (EC); it is an effect to be explained (De Houwer, 2007). Attitudes can come about through EC via the contiguous pairings of an attitude object (conditioned stimulus; CS) and positive or negative objects in the environment (unconditioned stimulus; US). Despite the common endpoint (attitude formation or change), such Implicit Misattribution Model 4 effects can theoretically come about through a variety of mechanisms, and features of the context in which the CS and US are jointly experienced can facilitate the operation of one mechanism over others (see Jones, Olson, & Fazio, 2010). We believe that the latter point is particularly worth highlighting. In this special issue, where researchers articulate various models designed to explain the mechanisms underlying various EC effects, none do so in a contextual vacuum. Most EC researchers employ only one or a few of several established EC paradigms (e.g., the picturepicture paradigm: De Houwer, Baeyens, Vansteenwegen, & Eelen, 2000; the surveillance paradigm: Olson & Fazio, 2001). These paradigms are essentially contexts that can facilitate or inhibit the operation of one mechanism or another. We believe it is important to recognize that like all research investigating the origins of attitudes, the theoretical views that specify mechanisms underlying EC effects are not paradigm neutral. In other words, theories about mechanisms underlying EC must consider the paradigm in which those mechanisms operate. Mechanism and paradigm are inevitably entangled. We see it as progress that this special issue is premised on the possibility of multiple mechanisms. Instead of much past research that offered simplistically broad statements about the qualities that characterize EC generally (e.g., that it does or does not require contingency awareness, or is or is not prone to extinction; see Hofmann, De Houwer, Perugini, Baeyens, & Crombez, 2010), the current issue allows for nuance that arguably better reflects the likelihood of multiple mechanisms, each with its own operating principles and conditions. That is, EC may or may not require contingency awareness or be prone to extinction, and the unique features of differing EC paradigms may lend themselves to some mechanisms over others. In this article we will focus on a particular model of EC, our Implicit Misattribution Model (IMM; first discussed in Jones, Fazio, & Olson, 2009). Before we do, we want to be clear Implicit Misattribution Model 5 about the implications of the above analysis. Our model does not claim to explain the universe of EC effects. Certainly, other models offer compelling explanations of the process(es) underlying EC under different conditions than those we typically study (e.g., De Houwer, 2009). Furthermore, as paradigm and mechanism are dependent, it is important to note that the model was developed in the context of the EC paradigm we developed (Olson & Fazio 2001, 2002, 2006). Like any research paradigm, it was not developed arbitrarily; we had certain theoretical views and empirical goals in mind when creating it. In what follows, we address the key assumptions of the IMM, its specific hypotheses, and, critically, the relevance of the research paradigm in which we test them. We then consider the additional questions posed by the editors of the special issue. The Implicit Misattribution Model (IMM) The IMM provides an account of how attitudes form as a result of the contiguous presentation of a CS and US. In brief, it assumes that people routinely engage in attributional (i.e., causal) processing of objects in their environment (Kelley & Michela, 1980). That is, they attempt to locate the causes of events and experiences—including the affective experiences that pervade daily life. Such processing often occurs implicitly (i.e., without intention or awareness of the process; see Gilbert, 1989, for a review). Critical to the IMM, attributional processing can go astray; people often fail to accurately identify the causes of affective experiences. When affect generated from some object in the environment (the US) is mistakenly and automatically attributed to some other object (the CS), EC occurs through implicit misattribution. The model argues that implicit misattribution of affect is more likely to the extent that one experiences what we have come to call “source confusability,” that is, ambiguity as to the origins of experienced Implicit Misattribution Model 6 affect. We describe each of these components of the model, support for its underlying assumptions, and its implications for EC in more detail below. It is telling that our model rests on notions of misattribution of affect rather than, say, the statistical or predictive learning notions that one finds in the traditional animal and human learning literature. Perhaps crudely, we embarked on our EC research not with any interest in whether some object might predict some other object or consequence, or form a “stimulusstimulus” link in memory, but whether we could somehow get the affect from one to “bleed” onto the other. And, coupled with our own intuitions as well as research from the implicit learning literature in cognitive psychology (e.g., Reber, 1989), we suspected that this “bleeding” of affect could occur implicitly. If it did, not only would we be avoiding the “demand awareness” alternative explanation that dominated so much earlier EC research, we would also be identifying a potentially pervasive process: one is constantly being bombarded with both affect-laden and neutral stimuli in nature. If misattribution from the affective sort to the neutral sort occurs implicitly, we could all potentially have a great number of attitudes we neither intended to have nor knew we acquired. In that sense, implicit misattribution of affect might be a ubiquitous source of attitudes. The Pervasiveness of (Mis)Attributions Among social psychologists, attribution and its specious cousin, misattribution, are both familiar and well-studied. Indeed, how people come to understand and interpret their environments is a foundational topic of social psychology (Ross & Fletcher, 1985). There is ample evidence, across decades of research, that humans engage in reasoning about the causes of events and experiences (e.g., Weiner, 1985). Most relevant to the present purposes, there is evidence that people engage in such reasoning automatically (Gilbert, 1989). For example, in the Implicit Misattribution Model 7 domain of impression formation, people tend to see traits in behaviors, that is, they interpret peoples’ behaviors in terms of causally relevant traits without having to walk through, in any deliberative fashion, what a given behavior might imply about the presence of some trait. As Gilbert, Pelham, and Krull (1988) put it, “We see Henry playing poker rather than simply moving his fingers, Herbert cheating rather than simply taking a card from his sleeve, and we are usually unaware of the inferential processes by which such categorizations are achieved” (p. 733). In short, attributional inferences are pervasive, spontaneous, operate highly efficiently, and can occur without awareness. There is also compelling evidence that when it comes to attributional thinking, we regularly screw it up (Ross, 1977). Perhaps the best-known example is the fundamental attribution error, the failure to account for situational and contextual influences