IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT ATTITUDE CHANGE sum,Thomas,Lepper.1999 Wilder.Simon. nt for an evaluative j ted tha pection should n.bout the vely when they ha cently encountered a negati attitud tude object should leave evaluative judgm ts unaffected lead plar.Fi such a ese are cor o at 978. assumptio s in evalu of activ should i ce the k Tesser Changes in the strategy to achieve consistency. The third kind s in the set of cousidered or The second kindofinnuenceomcvalatirejutermc selves.one of them follows from the op osite of the othe the amiliar propositions implies a change in the evaluation of an o icalimplicatiol ed in this definition ch o nce can be with thi Chen Chaiker 999:Petty m.Gav and Strack (2004)r strono or weak ttitude object and diffe kinds cognitive dissonanc ski and Strack argued that cognitiv information. tha ded as true and one follo from the nd thus cogntive disson of the ine prop or b enc asive Theatter process of the inconsistency betw sitions is particularly relevant for the present question of explic uasive smay add new to the by ng t prop mply a different evaluation of a given attitude object.x udgments de object when they find concplici to aradigm. in wh explic ack to this question in more detail when we con are the APE ion for their nodel with pe miliar with sit (i.e.,when the find an addition an object (se 10g io aght (Te .1978 or introspection (Wils ive e er,these processes of achieving cy ma by var 19962、m0 for an evaluation can change Baron.1997;C ecle Lui.1983:Stone& object.From the perspective of the these m 2001; Bodenhausen, Schwarz, Bless, & Wa¨nke, 1995; Gawronski, Bodenhausen, & Banse, 2005; Henderson-King & Nisbett, 1996; Sia, Lord, Blessum, Thomas, & Lepper, 1999; Wilder, Simon, & Faith, 1996). From a general perspective, this research has dem￾onstrated that participants evaluated a social group more nega￾tively when they had recently encountered a negatively evaluated exemplar of the group. In contrast, participants evaluated the same group more positively when they had recently encountered a positively evaluated exemplar. Findings such as these are consis￾tent with the assumption that recently encountered group members influence the associative pattern that gets activated for the group. Such changes in pattern activation should influence the associative evaluation of the group (e.g., Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001), which, in turn, may serve as a basis for evaluation judgments about the group. Changes in the set of considered propositions. The second kind of influence on evaluative judgments involves changes in the set of propositions that are considered to be relevant for an eval￾uative judgment. According to the APE model, this may be the case when either (a) the acquisition of new propositional beliefs about the world or (b) the additional consideration of already familiar propositions implies a change in the evaluation of an attitude object. The first case is probably best reflected in research on persua￾sion (for reviews, see Chen & Chaiken, 1999; Petty & Wegener, 1999). In studies of persuasion, participants are usually exposed to a persuasive message containing either strong or weak arguments about an attitude object and different kinds of peripheral or heu￾ristic cues, such as the expertise of the source, the likability of the source, or consensus information. A well-replicated finding is that under conditions of low cognitive elaboration, attitudes are more likely to be influenced by peripheral or heuristic cues rather than by the quality of the arguments (but see Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999). Under conditions of high elaboration, in contrast, attitudes are more likely to be influenced by the quality of arguments, whereas the influence of peripheral or heuristic cues is often (but not always) attenuated. From the perspective of the APE model, persuasive arguments are—by definition—propositional state￾ments and thus should influence attitudes primarily by processes of propositional reasoning. In other words, exposing participants to persuasive arguments may add new propositions to the set of propositions that are considered to be relevant for an evaluative judgment. If such changes in the set of considered propositions imply a different evaluation of a given attitude object, exposure to persuasive arguments is quite likely to lead to explicit attitude change. However, if the changes in the set of considered proposi￾tions do not imply a different evaluation, exposure to persuasive arguments should not lead to explicit attitude change. We come back to this question in more detail when we compare the APE model with persuasion models of attitude change. The second case is represented by instances in which the addi￾tional consideration of already familiar propositions implies a change in evaluative judgments about an attitude object (see Judd & Lusk, 1984). Evidence for this kind of influence comes from research on mere thought (Tesser, 1978) or introspection (Wilson, Dunn, Kraft, & Lisle, 1989). Studies in these areas have demon￾strated that merely thinking about an attitude object or introspect￾ing about the reasons for an evaluation can change evaluative judgments about the object. From the perspective of the APE model, mere thought or introspection about reasons is likely to add new propositions to the set of propositions that are considered to be relevant for an evaluative judgment. If such additionally con￾sidered propositions imply a different evaluation, mere thought and introspection should change evaluative judgments about the attitude object. If, however, additionally considered propositions confirm the original evaluation, enhanced thinking about an atti￾tude object should leave evaluative judgments unaffected (or lead to attitude polarization; see Tesser, 1978). These assumptions are consistent with research showing that introspection about the rea￾sons, but not introspection on feelings, leads to changes in evalu￾ative judgments about an attitude object (e.g., Millar & Tesser, 1986; Wilson & Dunn, 1986). Changes in the strategy to achieve consistency. The third kind of change in evaluative judgments involves changes in the strategy to achieve consistency. This kind of influence is prototypically reflected in research on cognitive dissonance. According to Fest￾inger (1957), two cognitions are dissonant when, considered by themselves, one of them follows from the opposite of the other. Conversely, two cognitions are consonant when one of them does not follow from the opposite of the other. Because the notion of logical implication presupposed in this definition requires an as￾signment of truth values, cognitive dissonance can be regarded as an inherently propositional phenomenon. Consistent with this claim, Gawronski and Strack (2004) recently argued that both the causes of cognitive dissonance and the process of dissonance reduction are inherently propositional. With regard to the causes of cognitive dissonance, Gawronski and Strack argued that cognitive inconsistency—and thus cognitive dissonance—arises when two propositions are regarded as true and one follows from the oppo￾site of the other. With regard to the process of dissonance reduc￾tion, Gawronski and Strack argued that people resolve cognitive inconsistency—and thus cognitive dissonance—either by explic￾itly rejecting one of the inconsistent propositions as false or by finding an additional proposition that resolves the inconsistency (see also Gawronski, Strack, & Bodenhausen, in press; Kruglanski, 1989). The latter process of resolving the inconsistency between prop￾ositions is particularly relevant for the present question of explicit attitude change. Changes in evaluative judgments may occur when people resolve the inconsistency within a set of relevant proposi￾tions by rejecting the propositional implications of an associative evaluation. However, people may not change their evaluative judgments about an attitude object when they find an additional proposition that resolves the inconsistency. These cases are well reflected in Festinger and Carlsmith’s (1959) induced compliance paradigm, in which counterattitudinal behavior leads to explicit attitude change only when participants do not have a situational explanation for their counterattitudinal behavior (i.e., when they reject the propositional implications of their associative evalua￾tions), not when they can justify their counterattitudinal behavior with situational factors (i.e., when they find an additional propo￾sition that resolves the inconsistency between their counterattitu￾dinal behavior and the propositional implication of their associa￾tive evaluations). Moreover, these processes of achieving consistency may be affected by various moderators (e.g., Harmon￾Jones, Brehm, Greenberg, Simon, & Nelson, 1996; Stalder & Baron, 1997; C. M. Steele & Lui, 1983; Stone & Cooper, 2003; for a review, see J. M. Olson & Stone, 2005), such that these moder￾IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT ATTITUDE CHANGE 701