GAWRONSKI AND BODENHAUSEN Another important aspect of kind of m the r can be des nbed as propositions that are a sumed to occur ina reflective syst em that is superordinate to an is,the ause of something special about its content.This view has mat (e.g..a neg h rely entertaining a particular proposition increase most important feature that distinguishes propositional from ass propositional thinking is an affirmation of momentaril (for a review.see K ehler.1991).Similar con an be tion i pends on f th on.F of n which a person bout ndors by othe ng this to attitudes we argue that people usu people irespective r this person ers this propos 1 propos ective of the tripartite model of attitude (see Zanna of the sitional implication of an au ent at uted to a n (e.g dis! nts.with their re independent of au natic affective 002 that such other (evaluative c ived validity d thus of the based on of th that nentarly consid relevant for the uth or falsity of Iv in luative pr on. of a p ith othe of a p mos ered alid a match npli ati of an ffectiv th prev mode the it is ithon't lik other attitud Henc L.However.the may b th xplicitly ing the ion of di cans are not a disad antaged minorit y group") ronski Pcters.Brochu.ers call explicit attitudes. Evaluations resulting from propositional processes can be characterized as evaluative judgments that are based on syllogistic inferences derived from any kind of proposi￾tional information that is considered relevant for a given judgment. Drawing on Strack and Deutsch (2004), such inferences are as￾sumed to occur in a reflective system that is superordinate to an associative store. That is, the reflective system is assumed to transform inputs from the associative store into propositional for￾mat (e.g., a negative affective reaction is transformed into the proposition “I dislike X”). The resulting propositions are then subject to syllogistic inferences that assess their validity. Thus, the most important feature that distinguishes propositional from asso￾ciative processes is their dependency on truth values. Whereas the activation of associations can occur regardless of whether a person considers the associations to be true or false, processes of propo￾sitional reasoning are generally concerned with the validation of evaluations and beliefs. Moreover, whether a given proposition is explicitly endorsed depends on its subjective validity, as deter￾mined by processes of propositional reasoning. Applying this reasoning to attitudes, we argue that people usu￾ally use their automatic affective reactions toward an object as a basis for evaluative judgments about this object. In other words, the default mode of propositional reasoning is affirmation of validity (Gilbert, 1991; see also Albarracı´n & Wyer, 2001), in this case the validity of the propositional implication of an automatic affective reaction (e.g., the proposition “I dislike X” implied by a negative affective reaction toward X). However, evaluative judg￾ments can also be independent of automatic affective reactions, when the propositional implications of these reactions are rejected as a valid basis for an evaluative judgment (see Strack, 1992).2 Perceived validity of a proposition—and thus of the propositional implication of an automatic affective reaction—depends on the consistency of this proposition with other propositions that are momentarily considered to be relevant for the respective judgment. In the case of evaluative judgments, such propositions may include nonevaluative propositions referring to general beliefs about the world or propositional evaluations of other attitude objects (Bem, 1970; Jones & Gerard, 1967).3 If the propositional implication of an automatic affective reaction is consistent with other relevant propositions, it will most likely be considered as valid and thus serve as the basis for an evaluative judgment. If, however, the propositional implication of an automatic affective reaction is inconsistent with other relevant propositions, it may be considered invalid.4 For example, the propositional implication of a negative affective reaction to a minority member (e.g., “I don’t like this African American person”) may be inconsistent with the proposi￾tional evaluation of another attitude object (e.g., “It is bad to evaluate members of disadvantaged minority groups negatively”) and nonevaluative propositions about the world (e.g., “African Americans are a disadvantaged minority group”). Hence, the re￾sulting inconsistency among the three propositions may lead to a rejection of the negative affective reaction as a valid basis for an evaluative judgment. However, the negative affective reaction may still serve as basis for an evaluative judgment if either the non￾evaluative proposition about the world is considered invalid (e.g., “African Americans are not a disadvantaged minority group”) or the propositional evaluation of another relevant attitude object is rejected (e.g., “Negative evaluations of disadvantaged minority members are okay”).5 Another important aspect of propositional reasoning concerns hypothetical propositions and mere knowledge of propositions. From the perspective of the APE model, hypothetical propositions can be described as propositions that are assigned truth values with a preliminary character. That is, a proposition becomes hypothet￾ical because of the tentative character of its truth value rather than because of something special about its content. This view has important implications for how hypothetical propositions affect information processing. Consistent with previous research, we argue that merely entertaining a particular proposition increases the momentary activation level of corresponding associations in memory (e.g., Gregg, Seibt, & Banaji, 2006). Because the default mode of propositional thinking is an affirmation of momentarily activated associations (see Gilbert, 1991), mere supposition should, in turn, increase the perceived validity of this proposition (for a review, see Koehler, 1991). Similar considerations can be applied to mere knowledge of a proposition. From the perspective of the APE model, mere knowledge of a proposition reflects cases in which a person knows about a proposition endorsed by other people irrespective of whether this person considers this proposi- 2 From the perspective of the tripartite model of attitudes (see Zanna & Rempel, 1988), one could argue that implicit attitudes (i.e., automatic affective reactions) represent the affective component attributed to atti￾tudes, whereas explicit attitudes (i.e., evaluative judgments) are typically a joint product of both affective and cognitive components, with their rela￾tive influence depending on factors such as cognitive elaboration (e.g., Shiv & Nowlis, 2004) and propositional consistency (e.g., Judd & Lusk, 1984). 3 It is important to note that such other (evaluative or nonevaluative) propositions are also based on inputs from the associative store. The present model implies no independent storage of propositions in long-term memory (see also Deutsch & Strack, in press). 4 Wyer and Radvansky (1999) recently argued that people sometimes recognize the truth or falsity of a proposition spontaneously in the course of comprehending a proposition. In particular, these researchers argued that people spontaneously construct mental models of a proposition in the course of comprehending that proposition. If the constructed model is redundant with the content of a previously formed model, people sponta￾neously recognize the corresponding proposition as true. Moreover, if the constructed model does not match with a previously formed model, people assess the validity of the proposition by comparing the similarity of its mental model with previously formed models of the same predicate. Applied to the present question, it is important to note that Wyer and Radvansky postulated such spontaneous validation processes only for declarative propositions (e.g., events, episodes), not for evaluative propo￾sitions. Moreover, given that automatic affective reactions have their roots in spontaneously activated associations, these associations—by defini￾tion—represent a previously constructed model. As such, associative eval￾uations should spontaneously be considered as true, which is consistent with our assumption that people, by default, base their evaluative judg￾ments on their automatic affective reactions, unless higher order processes of propositional reasoning lead to a rejection of the propositional implica￾tions of an associative evaluation (see also Deutsch, Gawronski, & Strack, in press; Gilbert, 1991). 5 These two cases are also reflected in contemporary theories of (ex￾plicit) prejudice, such that explicitly accepting the derogation of disadvan￾taged groups is considered a traditional form of prejudice, whereas denying discrimination is considered a modern form of prejudice (e.g., McConahay, 1986; Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995; for a more detailed discussion, see Gawronski, Peters, & Brochu, 2005). 694 GAWRONSKI AND BODENHAUSEN