TY - JOUR
T1 - Testing the automaticity features of the affect misattribution procedure
T2 - The roles of awareness and intentionality
AU - Kurdi, Benedek
AU - Melnikoff, David E.
AU - Hannay, Jason W.
AU - Korkmaz, Arın
AU - Lee, Kent M.
AU - Ritchie, Emily
AU - Surdel, Nicholas
AU - Vuletich, Heidi A.
AU - Yang, Xin
AU - Payne, B. Keith
AU - Ferguson, Melissa J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2023.
PY - 2024/4
Y1 - 2024/4
N2 - The affect misattribution procedure (AMP) is a measure of implicit evaluations, designed to index the automatic retrieval of evaluative knowledge. The AMP effect consists in participants evaluating neutral target stimuli positively when preceded by positive primes and negatively when preceded by negative primes. After multiple prior tests of intentionality, Hughes et al. (Behav Res Methods 55(4):1558–1586, 2023) examined the role of awareness in the AMP and found that AMP effects were larger when participants indicated that their response was influenced by the prime than when they did not. Here we report seven experiments (six preregistered; N = 2350) in which we vary the methodological features of the AMP to better understand this awareness effect. In Experiments 1–4, we establish variability in the magnitude of the awareness effect in response to variations in the AMP procedure. By introducing further modifications to the AMP procedure, Experiments 5–7 suggest an alternative explanation of the awareness effect, namely that awareness can be the outcome, rather than the cause, of evaluative congruency between primes and responses: Awareness effects emerged even when awareness could not have contributed to AMP effects, including when participants judged influence awareness for third parties or primes were presented post hoc. Finally, increasing the evaluative strength of the primes increased participants’ tendency to misattribute AMP effects to the influence of target stimuli. Together, the present findings suggest that AMP effects can create awareness effects rather than vice versa and support the AMP’s construct validity as a measure of unintentional evaluations of which participants are also potentially unaware.
AB - The affect misattribution procedure (AMP) is a measure of implicit evaluations, designed to index the automatic retrieval of evaluative knowledge. The AMP effect consists in participants evaluating neutral target stimuli positively when preceded by positive primes and negatively when preceded by negative primes. After multiple prior tests of intentionality, Hughes et al. (Behav Res Methods 55(4):1558–1586, 2023) examined the role of awareness in the AMP and found that AMP effects were larger when participants indicated that their response was influenced by the prime than when they did not. Here we report seven experiments (six preregistered; N = 2350) in which we vary the methodological features of the AMP to better understand this awareness effect. In Experiments 1–4, we establish variability in the magnitude of the awareness effect in response to variations in the AMP procedure. By introducing further modifications to the AMP procedure, Experiments 5–7 suggest an alternative explanation of the awareness effect, namely that awareness can be the outcome, rather than the cause, of evaluative congruency between primes and responses: Awareness effects emerged even when awareness could not have contributed to AMP effects, including when participants judged influence awareness for third parties or primes were presented post hoc. Finally, increasing the evaluative strength of the primes increased participants’ tendency to misattribute AMP effects to the influence of target stimuli. Together, the present findings suggest that AMP effects can create awareness effects rather than vice versa and support the AMP’s construct validity as a measure of unintentional evaluations of which participants are also potentially unaware.
KW - Affect misattribution procedure
KW - Automaticity
KW - Awareness
KW - Implicit evaluations
KW - Intentionality
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U2 - 10.3758/s13428-023-02291-2
DO - 10.3758/s13428-023-02291-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 38030926
AN - SCOPUS:85177790331
SN - 1554-351X
VL - 56
SP - 3161
EP - 3194
JO - Behavior Research Methods
JF - Behavior Research Methods
IS - 4
ER -