The deautomatization of accessible attitudes

The attitudinal effects of repeatedly encountering an object in a setting where an attitude was unneeded were investigated. In three experiments, participants repeatedly recognized words with strong evaluative connotations. A priming task was subsequently performed in which the repeatedly recognized words or control words served as primes. As expected, the attitudinal priming effects of the attitudes toward the repeated words were attenuated relative to the control words. This reduction in automatic attitude activation was observed even a day after the repeated recognition task, suggesting that attitudinal deautomatization is a relatively enduring effect that is not limited to the immediate context. The likelihood of automatic attitude activation was not diminished by the repeated evaluation of an object, indicating that the effect was not due to semantic satiation or fatigue of the attitude-object connection. A number of additional potential mediators of the deautomatization of attitudes were ruled out by the results. The findings highlight the functional nature of attitudes. Attitudes facilitate the appraisal of objects and the making of decisions. However, when the need to evaluate an object in a context decreases, the automatic activation of attitudes diminishes.