Affective reactions and context-dependent processing of negations
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Date
2008-12
Authors
Rubaltelli, Enrico
Slovic, Paul
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Society for Judgment and Decision Making
Abstract
Three experiments demonstrate how the processing of negations is contingent on the evaluation context in which the
negative information is presented. In addition, the strategy used to process the negations induced different affective
reactions toward the stimuli, leading to inconsistency of preference. Participants were presented with stimuli described
by either stating the presence of positive features (explicitly positive alternative) or negating the presence of negative
features (non-negative alternative). Alternatives were presented for either joint (JE) or separate evaluation (SE). Experiment
1 showed that the non-negative stimuli were judged less attractive than the positive ones in JE but not in SE.
Experiment 2 revealed that the non-negative stimuli induced a less clear and less positive feeling when they were paired
with explicitly positive stimuli rather than evaluated separately. Non-negative options were also found less easy to judge
than the positive ones in JE but not in SE. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that people process negations using two different
models depending on the evaluation mode. Through a memory task, we found that in JE people process the non-negative
attributes as negations of negative features, whereas in SE they directly process the non-negative attributes as positive
features.
Description
12 pages
Keywords
Processing of negations, Evaluation mode, Preferences, Joint vs. separate, Affect
Citation
Rubaltelli, E., & Slovic, P. (2008). Affective reactions and context-dependent processing of negations. Judgment and Decision Making, 3, 607-618