Evaluative conditioning of face picture CSs to odor USs

Josephine Todrank, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Evaluative conditioning applies Pavlovian classical conditioning principles to the modification of preferences. This research introduces a new evaluative conditioning procedure using odors as USs in a cross-modality protocol. When liked, neutral, and disliked odors (USs) that were plausibly connected with people were contingently presented with photographs of neutral people (CSs), subjects shifted their preference ratings for the people in the photographs presented subsequently without odors in the direction of their preferences for the odors. Subjects who developed personality sketches of someone "who looked and smelled this way" showed similar shifts as those who simply studied the odor-picture combinations. The basic protocol, without the personality sketch, was replicated twice using different experimenters. When the odors were not plausibly connected with people, there was a weaker and non-significant shift in the preference ratings.

Subject Area

Psychology|Experiments|Behaviorial sciences

Recommended Citation

Todrank, Josephine, "Evaluative conditioning of face picture CSs to odor USs" (1993). Dissertations available from ProQuest. AAI9321490.
https://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI9321490

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