Clearing up some misconceptions about the quad model

Psychological Inquiry 2006. Vol. I7. No. 3. 269-276 Copyright @ 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Inc. Clearing Up Some Misconceptions About the Quad Model Jeffrey W. Sherman University of California, Davis I thank the authors of the commentaries for giving their time to think about whatl wrote and for providing some very thoughtful views on the Quad Model. It is an impressive collection of respondents, and I found the commentaries to be constructive, well reasoned, and thought—provoking. My goal in this response is to try to clarify some misconceptions about the Quad Model that appeared among the commentaries. The fact that some of these issues appeared in multiple commentar- ies suggests that I failed to make certain aspects of the model clear in my original piece, and I welcome the opportunity to repair the situation. In other instances, I simply disagree with what someone wrote, and I ex- plain why. I address four broad issues: (a) assumptions about the automaticity/controllability of the processes represented in the model; (b) assumptions about the temporal sequence and relationships among the pro- cesses in the model; (c) the generality of the model, both in terms of task applicability and process identity; and (d) the bases for choosing among different process dissociation models. Assumptions About Automatieity/Controllability In their excellent analysis, Moors and De Houwer (this issue) describe a number of ways in which pro- cess models confound the categories of processes with the criteria for categorization. The Quad Model is de- scribed as a model that confounds functional processes with the conditions under which such processes can take place. In particular, the Quad Model is described as confounding the automatic versus controlled nature of a process with the identity of the process (e.g., guessing, overcoming bias). Given my description of the Quad Model, it is easy to see how these authors would mistakenly draw this conclusion, despite my ex- plicit efforts to disavow such a notion (as mentioned in Moors & De Houwer‘s footnote 2). Indeed. after re- reading my original target article, I wished that I had been much more clear on this matter. I was tempted to rewrite sections of my target article after the fact to avoid such confusion, but I suppose that would not have been fair to the respondents! Sol want to take this opportunity to state clearly and unequivocally that the Quad Model does not assume a priori that association activation (AC) and guessing (G) are automatic processes, whereas discrimination (D) and overcoming bias (()B) are controlled process. It is true that the four components of the Quad Model were derived from dual—process models that frequently treat these processes as categorically automatic or con- trolled. It also is true that I used the distinctions found among these dual-process models to provide a useful framework within which to describe the components of the Quad Model. However, none of this implies that the Quad Model assumes or requires that AC and G be au- tomatic. whereas D and OB be controlled. As I wrote in the target article. it is important to distinguish between categories of processes and features of processes. There I argued that automaticity and control should be considered features of qualitatively distinct processes rather than as categories that suhsume many qualita- tively distinct processes. More recently, we have made the distinction between the intrinsic nature and extrin- sic features of the processes (Sherman, Gawronski. Hugenberg, & Groom, 2006). Intrinsic natures refer to the qualitatively distinct identities of different pro- cesses (e.g., What does the process do?). For example, in the Quad Model, the intrinsic nature of activation processes has to do with the action of activating associ- ations or response tendencies; discrimination pro- cesses are defined by their actions of discriminating among possible responses; OB processes are deﬁned by their actions to suppress associations or response tendencies; and G processes are deﬁned by their ac- tions in producing response biases. In contrast, extrin- sic features refer to aspects of the processes that may vary and that are not inherent to the fundamental nature of the process. For instance, some processes may re- quire more cognitive effort, whereas others require less effort; some processes may be accompanied by con- scious awareness, whereas olhers may occur outside of conscious awareness; some processes may be elicited intentionally, whereas others are elicited unintention- ally; ﬁnally, some processes may be controllable. whereas others might be uncontrollable (Bargh. 1994). Though extrinsic features are important for under- standing the conditions that inlluenee a given process. they do not specify what exactly the process is doing, and they may or may not accompany any given intrin- sic process. In the target article I argued that it would be most appropriate for researchers to specify the intrinsic na- ture of important processes and to then examine empir-