The relative contribution of response bias and weighting-of-similarity bias to valence asymmetry in attitude generalization

Publication date: November 2019Source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 85Author(s): Hadar Ram, Nira LibermanAbstractNegative generalization asymmetry (NGA) is a tendency to generalize negative attitudes more widely than positive attitudes. Studies found robust NGA for new objects that resemble both positive and negative learned objects, and even stronger NGA for new objects that resemble neither. Two biases were suggested to underlie NGA: (1) negative response bias, whereby a novel object is perceived as novel, but forced to make a dichotomous good/bad decision, a responder has a strategy to classify it as bad; (2) negative weighting-of-similarity bias, whereby a novel object seems more similar to negative learned objects than to positive learned objects. We hypothesized that adding a third response alternative, “cannot be evaluated”, to the good/bad response alternatives commonly used in the BeanFest paradigm would reduce negative response bias but not negative weighting-of-similarity. As predicted, the new response alternative was used more as similarity to learned stimuli decreased. Also as predicted, NGA, although still significant, was lower in the 3-alternatives condition. Interestingly, extent of reduction in NGA due to adding the new response alternative did not vary as a function of stimulus type, and was not particularly strong for stimuli very dissimilar to any learned stimuli. These results confirm that NGA is indeed partly due to response bi...

Source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology - November 5, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research