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RUNNING HEAD: EVALUATION

How do people evaluate objects?

A brief review

Jan De Houwer

Ghent University, Belgium

In press. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. mailing address: Jan De Houwer

Department of Psychology Ghent University Henri Dunantlaan 2 B-9000 Ghent Belgium Email: Jan.DeHouwer@UGent.be Tel: ++32 9 264 64 62 Fax: ++32 9 264 64 89

Acknowledgements Jan De Houwer, Ghent University, Belgium. Preparation of this paper was supported by Grant BOF/GOA2006/001 of Ghent University and Travel Grant K.1.424.06.N.01 of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO – Vlaanderen, Belgium). Many thanks to Agnes Moors for her input and comments on several drafts of this paper.

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Abstract

Evaluation can be defined either as the process of determining the liking of an object or as

responding in an evaluative manner to objects. It can be studied by examining the evaluative

responses that objects evoke. After justifying these definitions and this approach to the study

of evaluation, I present a brief overview of what is known about the variables that influence

evaluative responding. Finally, I describe the Associative-Propositional Evaluation (APE)

model as an example of a theory about the mental processes that are assumed to underlie

evaluative responding.

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How Do People Evaluate Objects?

A Brief Review

Authors sometimes tend to overstate the importance of the topic that they are

addressing. There is, however, little risk of overstating the importance of the topic of this

paper. It is vital for all living organisms that they are able to respond in a different way to

objects and events that are good for them than to those that are bad for them. As all other

organisms, humans therefore constantly evaluate objects as being good or bad, liked or

disliked. Humans even evaluate their evaluations and construct normative guidelines about

how to optimize evaluations. In the present paper, I focus not on how evaluations should be

conducted but rather on how humans actually evaluate. I start by defining the concept

“evaluation” and discuss how it can be studied. In the second part, I present a short, non-

exhaustive overview of what is known about the variables that do and do not influence

evaluative responding. Finally, I discuss the role of theories about the mental processes that

underlie evaluative responding and describe the Associative-Propositional Evaluation (APE)

model as an example of such a theory.

How to Define and Study Evaluation?

Evaluation is often defined as the systematic assessment of the merits and value of

objects (e.g., Scriven, 1991). This definition, however, says more about what evaluations

should be than about how people actually evaluate objects. It might well be that humans often

evaluate objects in an unsystematic manner that does not reflect the merits and value of the

objects in an objective, truthful manner. When the aim is to study how people evaluate

objects, there is no reason to exclude by definition the possibility of evaluations that are

normatively incorrect but reflect the degree to which someone subjectively likes or dislikes

an object. Therefore, from the perspective of a psychologist who is interested in how people

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actually evaluate objects, evaluation can be defined as “determining the liking of an object”.

Saying that someone evaluates an object simply means that (s)he determines whether the

object is good or bad, liked or disliked, to be approached or to be avoided. This definition is a

functional, high-level description of a process that people are assumed to engage in. Although

the definition specifies what evaluation is meant to achieve, nothing is said about the low-

level processes and representations by which the function is achieved, about the conditions

under which these processes operate, or about how these evaluations are manifested in

behavior. These issues are not a matter of definition but need to be examined. The definition

is also not meant to imply that the function of evaluation is always to provide some kind of

overall liking of an object that takes into account all that is perceived or known about the

object. Rather, evaluating an object can lead to different outcomes depending on what

characteristics of the object are taken into account (e.g., sensory features, cognitive

information about the object, motivational properties).

Some have argued that evaluation should be defined not as a mental process but as an

effect, that is, as the occurrence of an evaluative response that is caused by the presence of an

object (e.g., Eagly & Chaiken, 2007, p. 583). Evaluating an object can thus be seen as

equivalent to responding in an evaluative manner to the object. In principle, any type of

response can be an evaluative response, including voluntary behavioral responses such as

selecting a number on a scale that expresses one’s liking of an object (e.g., Likert, 1932),

involuntary behavioral responses such as the modulation of the speed with which an object is

approached (e.g., Chen & Bargh, 1999; Solarz, 1960), physiological responses such as

changes in the electrical activity of facial muscles (e.g., Cacioppo, Petty, Losch, & Kim,

1986), and neurological responses such as the extent to which an object activates the

amygdala (e.g., Öhman, Carlsson, Lundqvist, & Ingvar, 2007). A response can be defined as

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an evaluative response when there are (empirical) arguments to back up the claim that the

response is determined by the liking of objects. One way to back up such claims is to

examine whether the response changes as the result of manipulations that can be assumed to

affect the liking of the object that evokes the response.

An important advantage of defining evaluation as evaluative responding is that it

renders it relatively easy to decide whether an object has been evaluated. It suffices to

determine whether the object evoked an evaluative response. Because psychological

processes cannot be observed directly, it is less obvious to determine whether an evaluation

process has occurred. The only possibility seems to be to infer the presence of the evaluation

process on the basis of the presence of an evaluative response. 1 If evaluation as an effect

occurs (i.e., an object evokes an evaluative response), one can conclude that evaluation as a

process must also have occurred. Although overt responses do not always allow for

conclusions about psychological processes (see Poldrack’s, 2006, discussion of the reverse

inference problem), studying the variables that influence evaluative responding can guide the

construction of theories about the low-level processes and representations that underlie

evaluative responding. These theories in turn provide a heuristic framework for organizing

empirical knowledge and allow the generation of new predictions about the variables that

influence evaluative responding. We can thus conclude that, independent of whether

evaluation is defined as a process or an effect, the study of evaluation boils down to the study

of evaluative responding. In the next section, I present a brief overview of the most important

findings regarding evaluative responding.

Empirical evidence

Evaluative responding can be automatic

As noted above, evaluation is sometimes defined as a systematic assessment of the

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merits and value of objects. This implies that evaluation is something that occurs in an

intentional, controlled, conscious, and time and effort consuming manner. It is clearly the

case that people can engage in such a systematic assessment. For instance, when buying a car,

the customer can (a) first make a list of the features that a car should definitely have or not

have (e.g., low price, high quality, and good looks), (b) assess the extent to which a specific

car possesses each of these features, and (c) average the different scores in order to decide

how good that car is. The evaluative responses that are based on such a systematic assessment

might not always be optimal from a normative perspective, but they are non-automatic in that

they occur only when people (a) have certain goals (e.g., to determine whether a car is good

or bad), (b) are aware of the object that they are evaluating, (c) have considerable time, and

(d) have considerable cognitive resources at their disposal. Many studies have been directed

at trying to understand how exactly people arrive at these non-automatic evaluative responses

(e.g., Ajzen, 1991).

Research conducted during the past 20 years has shown, however, that some

evaluative responses can occur (a) in the absence of the explicit goal to evaluate or despite

the goal to counteract their evaluative responses, (b) when people are unaware of the stimulus

that evokes the evaluation, (c) when they have little time available, and (d) when cognitive

resources are scarce. Evaluative responses that occur under one or more of these conditions

are called automatic evaluative responses. For instance, White people who are racially biased

against Black people have been shown to respond in a negative manner toward Black persons

even when they are unaware of paying attention to the race of the person, do not have the

goal to determine whether they like the person, and are busy doing other things (e.g., Fazio,

Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995).

Most of the evidence for automatic evaluative responses comes from studies on

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evaluative priming (see Fazio, 2001, for a review). In standard evaluative priming studies, on

each trial a prime word is presented briefly on a computer screen, immediately followed by a

target word that participants are asked to categorize as being good or bad. Results typically

reveal an evaluative priming effect, that is, faster responses when a target is preceded by a

prime with the same evaluative meaning (e.g., FLOWER – HAPPY; congruent trial) than

when the target and prime have a different evaluative meaning (e.g., CANCER – HAPPY;

incongruent trial). Because the only systematic difference between these two types of trials is

the evaluative meaning of the primes, the fact that reaction times are different on these types

of trials can be attributed to the (processing of the) liking of the prime stimuli. Hence, the

evaluative priming effect provides evidence for the evaluation of the prime stimuli and can be

regarded as an evaluative response (i.e., an observable effect of the liking of stimuli).

Studying the conditions under which evaluative priming effects occur therefore provides

important information about the conditions under which evaluative responding occurs. We

now know that evaluative priming effects can occur under a large variety of conditions with a

large variety of stimuli, suggesting that evaluative responding is a robust and ubiquitous

phenomenon (see Fazio, 2001, for a review).

These findings do not imply that evaluative priming (and thus evaluative responding)

is entirely unconditional. For instance, Teige-Mocigemba and Klauer (in press) found that

participants can consciously control evaluative priming effects by speeding up or slowing

down responses on certain trials. Instructions to fake attitudes also influenced evaluative

priming effects under certain conditions. Furthermore, data by Spruyt, De Houwer, Hermans,

and Eelen (2007) suggest that evaluative priming effects are present only when the evaluative

meaning of the primes is made salient by the procedure. Evaluative priming occurred when

participants responded to the valence of stimuli on a majority of trials but not when they had

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to process the semantic category (e.g., animal or object) of stimuli on the majority of trials.

Exploring and understanding the limitations of automatic evaluative responding will

undoubtedly become a major aim of future research.

Evaluative responding can be learned

Whether we respond in a positive or negative manner to a particular object is

determined to a large extent by experience. This is nicely demonstrated by the fact that

people can grow to love stimuli even if they cause physical damage and evoke a universal

negative response in infants (e.g., chili peppers) and by the large cultural differences in

objects that are liked or disliked (e.g., insects, blue cheese; see Rozin, 1982, for a review).

Research has shown that evaluative responses can form as a result of direct

experiences with an object. These direct experiences can be related to regularities with regard

to (a) the mere presence of an object, (b) the stimuli that co-occur with an object, or (c) the

(consequences of the) actions that co-occur with an object. With regard to (a), research on the

mere exposure effect has shown that frequently encountered objects (e.g., familiar faces) tend

to be liked more than new or infrequently encountered objects (e.g., previously unseen faces;

see Bornstein, 1989, for a review). With regard to (b), evaluative conditioning research

revealed that objects that often co-occur with positive objects (e.g., the aftershave of a loved

one) tend to be liked more than objects that often co-occur with negative objects (e.g., the

aftershave of an enemy; see De Houwer, Thomas, & Baeyens, 2001, for a review). With

regard to (c), studies by Fazio, Eiser, and Shook (2004) showed that objects that signal that

an action will have a negative outcome (i.e., that approaching the object will result in the loss

of points) are liked less than objects that signal that an action will have a positive outcome.

Also the valence of the actions themselves can influence evaluative responding to objects

associated with those actions. For instance, repeatedly approaching a neutral object seems

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sufficient to change the neutral object into a positive one (Woud et al., 2008; also see Bem,

1972). These three types of direct experiences have been shown to influence not only non-

automatic evaluative responses such as self-reported liking but also automatic evaluative

responses such as evaluative priming effects (e.g., Hermans, Baeyens, & Eelen, 2003).

Evaluative responding can result also from indirect experiences with an object, that is,

from information about the object that is communicated via verbal instruction or picked up

via observation.2 The effects of verbal information on evaluative responding have been

studied mainly in research on persuasion. Even though the emphasis in persuasion research is

often on changing evaluative responses to well known objects, many of the results are

relevant also for understanding the determinants of the original evaluative response to an

object (see Crano & Prislin, 2006, for a review). Recent studies suggest that verbal

information can give rise not only to non-automatic evaluative responses but also to

automatic ones. For instance, simply telling people that members of a (fictitious) social group

called “niffites” tend to behave in a bad manner will result in automatic negative responses

toward the members of that social group (Gregg, Banaji, & Seibt, 2006; also see De Houwer,

Hermans, & Eelen, 1998). In contrast to the large amount of work that has been directed at

understanding the acquisition of evaluative responses as a result of verbal information, there

is very little research about observation as a source of evaluative responding (see Baeyens,

Vansteenwegen, De Houwer, & Crombez, 1996, for an exception).

Evaluative responding is malleable

Once an evaluation has been acquired as a result of direct or indirect experiences, it

can be changed by additional direct or indirect experiences. There is relatively little research

about changing existing evaluations by means of direct experiences. One exception is

research on counterconditioning and extinction of evaluative conditioning effects (see De

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Houwer et al., 2001, for a review; also see Millar & Millar, 1990; Millar & Tesser, 1986, for

other relevant studies). Assume that an object is liked because it has previously been paired

with positive stimuli. Studies on counterconditioning have shown that the positive responses

toward the object can be removed or even changed into negative ones by pairing the object

with negative stimuli (e.g., Baeyens, Eelen, Van den Bergh, & Crombez, 1989). Interestingly,

studies on extinction have shown that merely presenting the object on its own does not seem

to be effective in undoing evaluative conditioning effects (e.g., Baeyens et al., 1989, but see

Lipp, Oughton, & LeLievre, 2003). In real life, for instance, you might grow to dislike an

initially neutral person called Paul because he is often accompanied by someone you dislike.

The studies discussed above suggest that you will continue to dislike Paul even when you

repeatedly meet him without the disliked person being present (no extinction). You will start

to like Paul, however, when you repeatedly see him together with someone you do like

(counterconditioning; see Walther, Nagengast, & Trasselli, 2005).

As noted above, research on persuasion has looked in detail at the variables that

determine whether verbal information can alter evaluative responding (see Crano & Prislin,

2006, for a review). Recently, researchers have started comparing the effectiveness of verbal

information for changing non-automatic and automatic evaluative responses. Initial results

suggest that verbal information has more impact on existing non-automatic responses than on

existing automatic evaluative responses (e.g., Gregg et al., 2006). For instance, when

participants are initially told that members of the social group “niffites” behave badly, but are

subsequently told that this information was incorrect, automatic evaluative responses to

niffites seem to remain negative while non-automatic evaluative responses (e.g., how much

participants say they like niffites) become more positive. However, more research is needed

to validate this finding.

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It is important to realize that changes in evaluative responding are not necessarily

permanent. Instead, the effect of new information tends to be specific to the context in which

it was presented (e.g., Lipp & Purkis, 2006). These results are important because they suggest

that new experiences do not simply erase the impact of old experiences (see Bouton, 1993,

for a review). Both old and new experiences are capable of determining evaluative

responding under certain conditions. This could also explain why (non-automatic and

automatic) evaluative responses have been found to be highly context dependent (see Blair,

2002, for a review). For instance, the same Black person might automatically evoke a

negative reaction in the context of a backstreet alley but a positive reaction in the context of a

basketball game (e.g., Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 2001). Evaluative responses also depend on

the goals that we have at a particular moment in time. For instance, food automatically

evokes a much more positive reaction when we are hungry than after eating a large meal

(e.g., Seibt, Häfner, & Deutsch; 2007; also see Ferguson & Bargh, 2004; Moors & De

Houwer, 2001).

Underlying Processes

In the previous section, we have considered only variables that determine whether an

object will evoke a positive evaluative response, a negative evaluative response, or no

evaluative response (e.g., do participants have the goal to evaluate; has the object been paired

with liked or disliked stimuli). It shows that a lot can be learned about evaluative responding

without making any assumptions about the precise nature of the low-level processes that

underlie the generation of evaluative responses. It is also important to realize that this

knowledge is valid regardless of assumptions about the underlying mental processes and thus

regardless of future changes in assumptions about these processes. This is why it is important

to clearly separate knowledge about variables that influence evaluative responding from

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assumptions about the mental processes that underlie evaluative responding. At the same

time, there should be a close interaction between the two. On the one hand, knowledge about

evaluative responding provides the basis for constructing and testing assumptions about the

mental processes underlying evaluative responding. On the other hand, theoretical

assumptions provide a way to organize knowledge about evaluative responding (i.e., they

have a heuristic function) and can lead to new predictions and thus new knowledge about the

variables that determine evaluative responding (i.e., they have a predictive function). This

interaction can work only if the two contributors do not become confounded.

A core concept in theories about evaluative responding is the concept “attitude”. An

attitude is generally assumed to be the main determinant of evaluative responding. However,

as noted by Fazio (2007), the concept has little explanatory power without a theory that

specifies how attitudes are formed, represented, activated, and influence behavior. Assume

that an attitude is defined simply as some kind of knowledge that is used for determining the

liking of an object. The only implication of this definition would be that evaluative responses

should depend not only on the properties of the object but also on what the individual knows

about the object. A more detailed definition would be that an attitude is an association in

memory between the representation of the object and the representation of positive or

negative valence (e.g., Fazio, 2007). This definition can be embedded in a theory according

to which (a) evaluative responses depend on the activation of the representation of positive

and negative valence in memory and (b) activation can spread automatically between

representations provided that the association between both is strong. Based on such a theory,

one can predict that evaluative responses can occur automatically (see Fazio, 2007). This is

just one of many theories on how attitudes are formed, represented, activated, and influence

behavior (see Gawronski, 2007, for a review). 3 In the remainder of this section, I focus on

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one of these other theories: the Associative-Propositional Evaluation (APE) model

(Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). This recent model was selected because it provides a

coherent account for why a variety of variables influence evaluative responding in the way

that they do.

The APE model postulates that automatic evaluative responses are generated by an

associative, impulsive system whereas non-automatic evaluative responses result from the

operation of a propositional, reflective system. The associative system consists of a collection

of nodes that are linked by associations. Associations form in a slow and gradual manner as a

result of repeated co-occurrences of stimuli or events. The automatic evaluative response to a

stimulus is thought to reflect whether the stimulus leads to the activation of predominantly

positive or negative information in the network. For instance, when an originally neutral

person Paul is repeatedly seen together with a disliked person, associations form between the

nodes representing Paul and the nodes representing the disliked person. As a result of these

associations, Paul automatically activates negative information in the associative system (i.e.,

the nodes representing the disliked person) which will lead to a negative automatic evaluative

response. Note that the associative system registers only that Paul and the disliked person

tend to co-occur. It does not encode the way in which the two are related. Knowledge in the

reflective system, on the other hand, is represented in a propositional format that does specify

how events are related. For instance, people might entertain the propositional belief that Paul

is a friend of the disliked person. Such propositional beliefs are thought to underlie non-

automatic evaluative responses. New propositional beliefs are typically derived from existing

propositional beliefs but can be influenced also by activation in the associative system.

The APE model can account for a wide range of findings regarding evaluative

responding and generates many new predictions. The assumption that evaluative information

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that is represented in the associative system can be activated automatically allows for the

occurrence of automatic evaluative responses. Non-automatic evaluative responses are

thought to originate from the propositional system. They occur only when participants have

certain goals, awareness, considerable time, and considerable resources because the

propositional system operates only when those conditions are met. In those cases where

propositions are based on automatically activated information in the associative system, non-

automatic evaluative responses will be in line with automatic ones. Automatic and non-

automatic evaluative responses can conflict when propositions about the liking of an object

are based primarily on other propositions. Hence, the model can account not only for the

existence of automatic and non-automatic evaluative responses but also generates interesting

predictions about when automatic and non-automatic evaluative responses overlap (for more

details, see Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). On the other hand, because the activation of

associations is assumed to be entirely automatic and unconditional, the model does not

provide an a priori account for why automatic evaluative responses do appear to be

conditional in certain ways (e.g., why they seem to occur only when evaluative information is

salient; see Spruyt et al., 2007).

The APE model also incorporates assumptions about how evaluative responding can

be acquired as the result of direct and indirect experiences. The direct pairing of stimuli is

assumed to result in the formation of associations in memory. The activation of these newly

formed associations can result in both automatic and (under certain conditions) non-

automatic evaluative responses. Verbal information can provide propositional knowledge that

can influence non-automatic evaluative responses. Because the model assumes that

associations form gradually as the result of many stimulus pairings, it cannot explain the fact

that a single presentation of verbal information about a new social group (e.g., Niffites) can

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lead to automatic evaluative responses towards the members of that group (e.g., Gregg et al.,

2006).

The APE model can account also for changes in evaluative responses. New direct

experiences of stimulus pairings can add new associations. Verbal instructions can lead to

new propositions that are to a certain extent consistent or inconsistent with previously formed

propositions. This leads to interesting predictions about when conflicting information leads to

a change in automatic and non-automatic evaluative responses (see Gawronski &

Bodenhausen, 2006). The fact that both automatic and non-automatic evaluative responses

are highly context-dependent can be explained on the basis of the assumption that the context

determines which associations are activated and which propositions are entertained as being

true.

In sum, the APE model can account for many findings regarding the variables that

influence evaluative responding and has led to new insights in evaluative responding. At the

same time, it has difficulties accounting for certain findings, demonstrating the need for

future developments in theories of evaluative responding.

Conclusion

Having come to the end of this paper, it is time to answer the question that was

featured in its title: How do people evaluate objects? I have argued that there are two ways to

define evaluation and thus two ways of answering the question. Most contemporary

psychologists would define evaluation as a psychological process. For them, the question of

how people evaluate boils down to a question about the exact nature of the mental

representations on which the evaluation process operates and the way in which these mental

representations are transformed. Although many theories have been proposed about the

nature of the evaluation process (e.g., the APE model of Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006),

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there is little agreement amongst different psychologists about which theory is correct. In

fact, it seems safe to conclude that we still know little about what the evaluation process

looks like and thus still do not know much about how people evaluate (see Gawronski, 2007,

for an overview of the intense debate about nature of the evaluation process).

There is, however, a second, often ignored way of answering the question of how

people evaluate. It starts from the definition of evaluation as responding in an evaluative

manner and is concerned with the identification of variables that influence evaluative

responding. Fortunately, we already know quite a lot about what determines evaluative

responding. We know that evaluative responding is a fairly unconditional phenomenon that

can occur in a controlled manner but also automatically. Whether an object evokes positive or

negative evaluative responses depends not only on genetic factors but also on our direct and

indirect past experiences with that object. Moreover, both controlled and automatic

evaluative responding can change in predictable ways as the result of new experiences and is

highly dependent on the (motivational) context. The validity of this knowledge does not

depend on the validity of our current understanding of the psychological processes and

representations that underlie evaluative responding. It will remain valid regardless of future

developments in our understanding of these processes and representations. Moreover,

progress in understanding the evaluation process will be achieved primarily by studying the

variables that influence evaluative responding. Therefore, research on evaluation ultimately

boils down to research on evaluative responding.

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Footnotes

1. An alternative might be to ask people to introspect and verbally describe whether they

have evaluated the object and how they did this. Although such an approach could

provide useful information, it is clear that even adult humans are limited in the extent

to which they are (willing and) able to accurately describe their mental processes and

the effect that these processes have on behavior (e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).

Introspection is not even an option when the aim is to study evaluation in nonverbal

organisms such as human infants and nonhuman animals. Introspection is also not

informative when the aim is to study whether evaluations can occur without

awareness of the evaluation process or the outcome of the process.

2. The information that is conveyed indirectly can be related to regularities regarding (a)

the mere presence of an object, (b) the stimuli that co-occur with an object, or (c) the

consequences of the actions associated with an object. Surprisingly little research has

been conducted to compare the effects of directly experiencing a regularity versus

obtaining verbal information about that regularity (but see Olsson & Phelps, 2004).

3. Because a definition of the concept “attitude” always needs to be embedded with a

broader process theory, disputes about the correct definition of the concept “attitude”

(e.g., Gawronski, 2007) are in reality disputes about what is the best process theory to

explain evaluative responding. Also, the ultimate aim of attitude research should not

be to better understand what an attitude is but rather to better understand evaluative

responding. From this perspective, it is advisable to define an attitude as an evaluative

response because this clarifies that attitude research should be directed understanding

evaluative responding.