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Bob Zajonc and the Unconscious Emotion

Bob Zajonc and the Unconscious Emotion. ABSTRACT:.

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Bob Zajonc and the Unconscious Emotion

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  1. Bob Zajonc and the Unconscious Emotion ABSTRACT: This article focuses on Bob Zajonc’s views on unconscious emotion, especially in the context of the debates about the independence of affect and cognition. Historically, Bob was always interested in the “mere”—basic, fundamental processes. His empirical demonstrations of precognitive and preconscious emotional processes, combined with his elegant expositions of them, sharply contrasted with cold and complex cognitive models. Interestingly, Bob tended to believe that whereas the causes of emotion can be unconscious, the emotional state itself tends to be conscious. However, he reconsidered this assumption and in his later work showed that subjects in affective priming experiments do not experience conscious affect, but instead act on basic preferences. Today, Bob’s insights continue to inspire research on “unconscious emotion.” Winkielman (2010) via Elise Rice

  2. “In seeking to establish the independence of affect and cognition, I often relied on the assumption that emotions are often unconscious” (Zajonc, 2003, p. 32). Winkielman was one of Zajonc’s graduate students at the University of Michigan. He maintains a memorial website as a tribute to Zajonc’s legacy. His paper describes Zajonc’s work and enduring influence, focusing on two themes: - Personal factors underlying (and shaping) his work - Key developments in research on unconscious emotion ~ Early attempts frustrated by insufficient tech/theory ~ Independence of cognition and affect ~ Unconscious elicitors of emotion Figure 1: Robert Zajonc in front of a device measuring reaction time in group experiments. ~ “Truly” unconscious emotion Winkielman (2010) via Elise Rice

  3. Consequences of Automatic Evaluation:Immediate Behavioral Predispositionsto Approach or Avoid the StimulusMark Chen & John A. Bargh Research on automatic attitude activation has documented a pervasive tendency to nonconsciously classify most if not all incoming stimuli as either good or bad. Two experiments tested a functional explanation for this effect. The authors hypothesized that automatic evaluation results directly in behavioral predispositions toward the stimulus, such that positive evaluations produce immediate approach tendencies, and negative evaluations produce immediate avoidance tendencies. Participants responded to attitude object stimuli either by pushing or by pulling a lever. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants were faster to respond to negatively valenced stimuli when pushing the lever away (avoid) than when pulling it toward them (approach) but were faster to respond to positive stimuli by pulling than by pushing the lever. This pattern held even when evaluation of the stimuli was irrelevant to the participants’ conscious task. The automatic classification of stimuli as either good or bad appears to have direct behavioral consequences.

  4. Attitudes as predispositions for behavior • Past approaches assumed consciously intended behavior • Attitudes and evaluations may automatically evoke approach and avoidance behavioral tendencies • >92 attitude object names presented as stimulus • -Pull lever (approach) • -Push lever (avoid) Experiment 1 • Half: Congruent • pos/pull, neg/push • Half: Incongruent • pos/push, neg/pull Experiment 2 • -Respond to stimulus presence as quickly as possible • -always pull (1 block) • -always push (1 block) • (Congruent: pos/pull; neg/push) *Main effect of congruency *Strength did not moderate effect

  5. Priming Mood: Vigilance task • 75 trials with 4 words • Positive (e.g., music, friends) • Negative (e.g., war, cancer) • Neutral (e.g., building, plant) • *** center of the screen • Word (60 ms) & Letter string mask (60 ms) • P indicate location of “flash” (L vs. R) • Trial interval (2 - 7 s) • Exp. 3 & 4: Auto Eval. & Stereotype reliance • Vigilance Task Prime • Affect & Arousal Scales • Implicit Stereotyping: Stereotypic Explanatory Bias Scale (SEB) • Results: • Neg. Prime less reliance on stereotypes • Pos. Prime more reliance on stereotypes • Mood mediated relationship between automatic evaluation and implicit stereotyping • Exp. 2: Auto Eval. & Impression Formation • Vigilance Task Prime • Jim & Joe: 15(5) honest & 5 (15) dishonest • Likeability ratings • Results: • Neg. Prime most polarized impressions • Pos. Prime least polarized impressions • Contributions and Discussion Questions • These findings extend the feelings-as-information approach providing evidence of an unconscious mechanism that evokes affect relied upon to adaptively interact with current environment. • Would you expect the effects to remain if affect state remained out of conscious awareness? • Is it surprising that differences in reported affect were found with this priming method unlike Winkielman & Berridge’s priming method which used happy, angry, and neutral faces?

  6. Duckworth, K. L., Bargh, J. A., Garcia, M., & Chaiken, S. (2002). The Automatic Evaluation of Novel Stimuli. Psychological Science, 13, 513-519.

  7. Prior work: • Mere exposure: novel stimuli, explicit measures (e.g., Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc 1980; Zajonc 1968) • Automatic evaluation: non-novel stimuli, implicit measures (e.g., Fazio et al. 1986; Bargh et al. 2002) • This work: • Novel (auditory sounds and abstract paintings) vs. Non-novel stimuli • Implicit measures (automatic evaluations and approach/avoidance tendencies) • Key finding: • Novel stimuli are automatically evaluated

  8. JPSP, 2007 Jen Isherwood

  9. Study 3 Study 4

  10. The Effects of Nonconsciously Priming Emotion Concepts on Behavior Zemack-Rugar, Bettman and Fitzsimons (2007) Current empirical evidence regarding nonconsciously priming emotion concepts is limited to positively versus negatively valenced affect. This article demonstrates that specific, equally valencedemotion concepts can be nonconsciously activated, remain inaccessible to conscious awareness, and still affect behavior in an emotion-specific fashion. In Experiment 1A, participants subliminally primed with guilty emotion adjectives showed lower indulgence than did participants subliminally primed with sad emotion adjectives; even after the addition of a 5-min time delay, these results were replicated in Experiment 1B. Participants in the different priming conditions showed no differences in their subjective emotion ratings and were unaware of the emotion prime or concept activation. Experiments 2A and 2B replicated these findings using a helping measure, demonstrating that individuals primed with guilt adjectives show more helping than do individuals primed with sadness adjectives. In all studies, effects were moderated by individuals’ specific emotion-response habits and characteristics.

  11. Zemack_Rugar, Bettman and Fitzsimons (2007) Study 1A

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