David M. Sanbonmatsu

On the Automatic Activation of Attitudes

We hypothesized that attitudes characterized by a strong association between the attitude object and an evaluation of that object are capable of being activated from memory automatically upon mere presentation of the attitude object. We used a priming procedure to examine the extent to which the mere presentation of an attitude object would facilitate the latency with which subjects could indicate whether a subsequently presented target adjective had a positive or a negative connotation. Across three experiments, facilitation was observed on trials involving evaluatively congruent primes (attitude objects) and targets, provided that the attitude object possessed a strong evaluative association. In Experiments 1 and 2, preexperimentally strong and weak associations were identified via a measurement procedure. In Experiment 3, the strength of the object-evaluation association was manipulated. The results indicated that attitudes can be automatically activated and that the strength of the object-evaluation association determines the likelihood of such automatic activation. The implications of these findings for a variety of issues regarding attitudes--including their functional value, stability, effects on later behavior, and measurement--are discussed.

The Effects of Physiological Arousal on Information Processing and Persuasion

The effects of physiological arousal on persuasion are investigated. An exercise task was used to manipulate physiological arousal, and systolic blood pressure readings were taken to assess the effectiveness of this manipulation. The results indicate that endorser status (celebrity or noncelebrity) has a stronger influence on brand attitudes under high than under moderate levels of physiological arousal, whereas argument strength has a greater impact under moderate than under high arousal levels. The results are consistent with the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.

Who Multi-Tasks and Why? Multi-Tasking Ability, Perceived Multi-Tasking Ability, Impulsivity, and Sensation Seeking

The present study examined the relationship between personality and individual differences in multi-tasking ability. Participants enrolled at the University of Utah completed measures of multi-tasking activity, perceived multi-tasking ability, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. In addition, they performed the Operation Span in order to assess their executive control and actual multi-tasking ability. The findings indicate that the persons who are most capable of multi-tasking effectively are not the persons who are most likely to engage in multiple tasks simultaneously. To the contrary, multi-tasking activity as measured by the Media Multitasking Inventory and self-reported cell phone usage while driving were negatively correlated with actual multi-tasking ability. Multi-tasking was positively correlated with participants’ perceived ability to multi-task ability which was found to be significantly inflated. Participants with a strong approach orientation and a weak avoidance orientation – high levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking – reported greater multi-tasking behavior. Finally, the findings suggest that people often engage in multi-tasking because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task. Participants with less executive control - low scorers on the Operation Span task and persons high in impulsivity - tended to report higher levels of multi-tasking activity.

Optimism, Pessimism, and Gambling: The Downside of Optimism

Three studies examined the relation between dispositional optimism and gambling. In Study 1, optimists were more likely than pessimists to have positive gambling expectations and report maintaining these expectations following losses. They also were more likely to indicate that winning money was a primary motivation for their gambling. Study 2 demonstrated that pessimists but not optimists reduce their betting and expectations after poor gaming performance. Study 3 replicated this effect using a more controlled experiment and showed that after losing, optimists report remembering more near wins than do pessimists. Thus, all three studies suggest that optimists, more than pessimists, maintain positive expectations and continue gambling after experiencing negative gaming outcomes. The authors suggest that despite optimism’s many benefits, there are common situations in which the pessimistic tendency to disengage is beneficial.

Selective hypothesis testing

A diverse set of biases that have been found to characterize judgment may be similarly mediated by a process of selective hypothesis testing. Our paper begins with a definition of selective hypothesis testing and an explanation of how and when this process leads to error. We then review a diverse and often disconnected set of findings in the person perception, judgment, cognition, attitudes, attribution, and rule discovery literatures that can be explained by this process. Finally, we examine the question of why the selective testing of hypotheses occurs. Although the psychological literature suggests that selective hypothesis testing contributes to a variety of errors, in many contexts it may be a useful and efficient strategy that leads to satisfactory judgment.

The role of prior knowledge and missing information in multiattribute evaluation

Abstract Complete information about the features of people, objects, or issues that are being judged is not always present or available. Our study suggests that often perceivers do not recognize the absence of relevant information in forming attitudinal judgments. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the extremity and degree of confidence in judgment are not always affected by missing information. Experiment 2 demonstrates that the extremity of judgment is not always affected by the amount of information presented. The evaluations of individuals highly knowledgeable about the target object were much more likely to be influenced by omissions and by set size relative to the evaluations of less knowledgeable subjects. These findings suggest that sensitivity to missing information increases with content-specific knowledge.

Preference for Risk in Investing as a Function of Trait Optimism and Gender

This research examines the role of gender and optimism on the riskiness of investment choices of students (N = 66) in a semester long investment contest with both monetary and academic incentives. Data suggest that males make more risky investment choices than females, and that this difference was primarily due to the riskier choices of optimistic males. In addition, males demonstrated greater variability in final portfolio value than did females. Our results suggest that 1) the well documented gender difference in investment strategies of men and women may be due to a specific subgroup of males (i.e., optimists); 2) that optimism may lead to different behavioral tendencies in men and women depending on the domain; and 3) that the benefits of optimism may be restricted to domains in which continued effort and information seeking are likely to lead to desired outcomes.

Considering the Best Choice: Effects of the Salience and Accessibility of Alternatives on Attitude-Decision Consistency

The authors examined how the presence or absence of specified alternatives influences which alternatives are considered and what choice is made. The accessibility of alternatives as a moderator of the correspondence between attitudes and decisions also was investigated. In Study 1, the accessibility of alternatives was an important determinant of choice when decisions options were unspecified. The results of Studies 2 and 3 suggest that the potential for attitude-decision correspondence is high when (a) the decision context makes the alternatives salient or (b) alternatives are easily accessed from memory.

The Brand Positivity Effect: When Evaluation Confers Preference

One of the most common forms of consumer judgment is singular evaluation: the evaluation or appraisal of singular brands. Three experiments show that singular evaluation is often characterized by a brand positivity effect—brands tend to be evaluated more positively than warranted when judged in isolation. In addition to demonstrating how the brand positivity effect may bias consumer judgments of and choice intention regarding products in very different categories, we demonstrate how the brand positivity effect influences real consumer choice in a mall intercept study. Finally, we provide evidence that selective processing of brand information underlies the brand positivity effect.

The role of attribute knowledge and overall evaluations in comparative judgment

Abstract Comparisons are often characterized by a directional feature-matching process in which individuals examine the extent to which the features of one alternative—the “subject”—are present or absent in a second alternative—the “referent.” Previous research cf. ( Tversky, 1977 ; Houston, Sherman, & Baker, 1989 ) has found that individuals exhibit a pervasive tendency to focus upon the unique features of the subject and to neglect the unique features of the referent during the comparison process (the direction-of-comparison effect). Experiment 1 examined how the availability of overall evaluations in memory influences the direction-of-comparison effect and comparison strategy selection. When overall evaluations toward the choice alternatives were available, respondents were less likely to show a directional bias and neglect the unique features of the referent in making a preference judgment. The findings suggest that the availability of overall evaluations decreases the likelihood of a feature-based comparison. Experiment 2 examined the robustness of the direction-of-comparison effect when feature-based comparisons are performed. The direction-of-comparison effect was found when the features of two alternatives were from different dimensions, but not when the features occupied different points on the same dimension. The results suggest that directional effects in preference judgments depend on the availability of overall evaluations and on the nature of the features involved in the comparison process.