GAWRONSKI AND BODENHAUSEN however.that minimal group su effects were nt mea mplicit game that repeatedly paired self-relevant words (CS) Ote Wentura.:for a review,see Oten. 01) given that me sociation between self and in-groupmay be n-groups ove Changes in pattem.A ecnd cause for changes i vation Such changes sbould occur when simple co sincientoniuencg aired with mental changesin (c.g.by of EC aiitpresentedby u that with this (5) ntly argued that the sel a)that the attitude object is d in ann,&Pe 2000:Greenv 2000K00 ub en an attitude obje and the self sho ead to diffe attem activation is concerned with the effects of 2003.1i s of bject (e. 2001 nditioning proce volves a mere asso was I wer when partic were pr ed with pi attit whe Draw vine on studies by Gawrons and Becker (in press) associative structure related to Black and White peop ive pictures changed participants' ictures used in al as iative evaluations were m these pictures led to changes in the activation of ale tin postde en p er than to changes d the It is imporant nd Lee (20 who found that exp re to violent rap andom assi by the of Black pe ple In mere ap mu mayactivatea eads to an as ciative transfer of implicit self-evaluations to the of Black p oole me enhance implicit prejudice of EC may also ent with res lig.Bu were obtained by J.P.Mitchell.Nosek.and IV. are suffi ent to indu implicit prefere or i he r oth 2001:Caste mith Arcuri 2004.Da ation when .2004:Otten&Wentura.1999:Pratt gorized as an athlete but a negative associative evaluatio in obtained when c zatio may appear somewhat surprising.From the perspective of ECwhen self-related words (CS) were subliminally paired with pos￾itive adjectives (US) than when self-related words were sublimi￾nally paired with neutral words. These effects were consistent across different measures of implicit self-esteem (e.g., IAT, name letter effect). Baccus et al. (2004) obtained similar effects using a computer game that repeatedly paired self-relevant words (CS) with smiling, frowning, or neutral faces (US). The notion of EC is also reflected in a study by Karpinski and Hilton (2001). These researchers found that implicit prejudice against older adults was influenced by repeated pairings of the words youth and elderly (CS) with positive and negative words (US). In particular, participants exhibited a lower level of implicit prejudice against older people in an Implicit Association Test when youth was repeatedly paired with negative words and elderly was repeatedly paired with positive words than when youth was repeatedly paired with positive words and elderly was repeatedly paired with negative words. A special case of EC is represented by the creation of new associations between an attitude object and the self. Consistent with this notion, Walther et al. (2005) recently argued that the self can function as a US when it is “paired” with a neutral CS. Given that most people show positive evaluations of themselves (Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000; Greenwald & Farnham, 2000; Koole, Dijksterhuis, & Van Knippenberg, 2001), the creation of a new association between an attitude object and the self should lead to more positive evaluations of the attitude object (e.g., Walther & Trasselli, 2003). It is important to note that, as the proposed conditioning process involves a mere associative transfer of self￾evaluations to the attitude object, the resulting implicit attitude should depend on people’s implicit self-evaluation such that im￾plicit positivity toward the attitude object should increase as a function of implicit positivity toward the self. Evidence for these assumptions can be found in a series of studies by Gawronski, Bodenhausen, and Becker (in press). Gawronski et al. found that choosing between two equally attrac￾tive pictures changed participants’ implicit evaluations of these pictures, such that they evaluated chosen pictures more positively after than before the decision (see Brehm, 1956). Moreover, post￾decisional associative evaluations were moderated by implicit self￾evaluations, such that postdecisional positivity toward chosen pic￾tures increased as function of participants’ implicit positivity toward the self. It is important to note that this effect was inde￾pendent of whether ownership resulted from participants’ decision or from random assignment by the experimenter. In terms of the APE model, these results suggest that mere ownership can create an association between the owned object and the self, which then leads to an associative transfer of implicit self-evaluations to the object. The notion of EC effects arising from new associations to the self is also consistent with research on implicit in-group favorit￾ism. Using the minimal group paradigm (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971), several researchers have found that minimal group settings are sufficient to induce an implicit preference for in￾groups over out-groups (e.g., Ashburn-Nardo, Voils, & Monteith, 2001; Castelli, Zogmeister, Smith, & Arcuri, 2004; DeSteno, Das￾gupta, Bartlett, & Cajdric, 2004; Otten & Wentura, 1999; Pratto & Shih, 2000). Given that participants usually have little or no declarative knowledge regarding such minimal groups, this finding may appear somewhat surprising. From the perspective of EC, however, one could argue that minimal group settings are suffi￾cient to create an association between the new in-group and the self, which, in turn, should lead to an associative transfer of implicit self-evaluations to the new in-group (see also Cadinu & Rothbart, 1996; Gramzow & Gaertner, 2005; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Otten & Wentura, 2001; for a review, see Otten, 2003). Thus, given that most people’s implicit self-evaluation is highly positive (Bosson et al., 2000; Greenwald & Farnham, 2000; Koole et al., 2001), the association between self and in-group may be sufficient to produce an implicit preference for in-groups over out-groups in minimal group settings. Changes in pattern activation. A second cause for changes in associative evaluations is represented by changes in pattern acti￾vation. Such changes should occur when simple context cues are sufficient to influence which pattern of associations is activated for an already familiar attitude object. These cases differ from incre￾mental changes in associative structure (e.g., by means of EC), such that no pairing with evaluative information is required to change implicit attitudes. Instead, changes in pattern activation presuppose (a) that the attitude object is already represented in a multifaceted manner and (b) that the presence of particular context cues activates different associative patterns reflecting different subsets of this representation. A first set of studies that is consistent with the notion of differential pattern activation is concerned with the effects of momentarily accessible group members. Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001), for example, found that implicit prejudice against African Americans was lower when participants were presented with pic￾tures of admired Blacks and disliked Whites before they completed an implicit prejudice task than when they were presented with pictures of disliked Blacks and admired Whites. Drawing on basic assumptions by the APE model, we argue that the presentation of familiar exemplars activates different patterns of the preexisting associative structure related to Black and White people, which, in turn, influences participants’ associative evaluation of Black and White people in general. Because the pictures used in Dasgupta and Greenwald’s studies generally depicted highly familiar indi￾viduals (e.g., Michael Jordan, Tom Cruise), it seems likely that these pictures led to changes in the activation of already existing patterns rather than to changes in the underlying associative struc￾ture. This interpretation can also be applied to findings by Rudman and Lee (2002), who found that exposure to violent rap music led White participants to show more negative associative evaluations of Black people. In terms of the APE model, exposure to violent rap music may activate a particular associative pattern of partici￾pants’ representation of Black people. If this pattern involves a more negative evaluation of Black people, mere exposure to vio￾lent rap music may be sufficient to enhance implicit prejudice against African Americans. Similar findings were obtained by J. P. Mitchell, Nosek, and Banaji (2003). These researchers found that associative evalua￾tions elicited by well-known individuals depended on whether these individuals were categorized in terms of their race or other applicable categories (e.g., occupation). For example, Michael Jordan elicited a positive associative evaluation when he was categorized as an athlete but a negative associative evaluation when he was categorized as African American. These effects were obtained when categorization was manipulated by the category labels in an IAT (Greenwald et al., 1998) or by the salience of 698 GAWRONSKI AND BODENHAUSEN