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Cited by 27Social and Intergroup PsychologyPsychology of Social InfluenceBehavioral Health and Interventions

Incidental Attitude Formation via the Surveillance Task: A Preregistered Replication of the Olson and Fazio (2001) Study

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Moran, Tal, Hughes, Sean, Hussey, Ian, Vadillo, Miguel A., Olson, Michael A., Aust, Frederik, Bading, Karoline, Balas, Robert +21 more·2021·Psychological Science
DOI 10.1177/0956797620968526
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Abstract

Evaluative conditioning is one of the most widely studied procedures for establishing and changing attitudes. The surveillance task is a highly cited evaluative-conditioning paradigm and one that is claimed to generate attitudes without awareness. The potential for evaluative-conditioning effects to occur without awareness continues to fuel conceptual, theoretical, and applied developments. Yet few published studies have used this task, and most are characterized by small samples and small effect sizes. We conducted a high-powered ( N = 1,478 adult participants), preregistered close replication of the original surveillance-task study (Olson & Fazio, 2001). We obtained evidence for a small evaluative-conditioning effect when “aware” participants were excluded using the original criterion—therefore replicating the original effect. However, no such effect emerged when three other awareness criteria were used. We suggest that there is a need for caution when using evidence from the surveillance-task effect to make theoretical and practical claims about “unaware” evaluative-conditioning effects.

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  • A high-powered replication of Olson & Fazio's (2001) original study found that EC effects in the surveillance task are driven by a subset of consciously encoded CS-US pairings.

    “a high-powered replication of Olson & Fazio's (2001) original study found that EC effects in the surveillance task are driven by a subset of consciously encoded CS–US pairings (Kurdi et al. 2022, Moran et al. 2021).”

    From Unawareness of Attitudes, Their Environmental Causes, and Their Behavioral Effects (2025) · cites this paper as Moran et al. 2021

    The paper reports a high-powered close conceptual replication and, in the Results (pp. 6–7), EC effects among participants classified as aware; effects were not significant under three alternative criteria for excluding aware participants. But the Interpretation (p. 8) says retrospective awareness measures cannot establish whether participants consciously encoded the pairings, so the finding does not show that a subset of consciously encoded pairings drove the effects. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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Authors
Moran, T., Hughes, S., Hussey, I., Vadillo, M. A., Olson, M. A., Aust, F., Bading, K., Balas, R., Benedict, T., Corneille, O., Douglas, S. B., Ferguson, M. J., Fritzlen, K. A., Gast, A., Gawronski, B., Giménez-Fernández, T., Hanusz, K., Heycke, T., Högden, F., Hütter, M., Kurdi, B., Mierop, A., Richter, J., Sarzyńska-Wawer, J., Smith, C. T., Stahl, C., Thomasius, P., Unkelbach, C., & De Houwer, J.
Affiliations
  • Ghent University (BE)
  • Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES)
  • University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US)
  • University of Cologne (DE)
  • Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE)
  • Institute of Psychology (PL)
  • UCLouvain (BE)
  • University of Florida (US)
  • Cornell University (US)
  • The University of Texas at Austin (US)
  • Department of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
  • GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (DE)
  • University of Tübingen (DE)
  • Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences
  • Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University
Corresponding author
Moran, Tal
ORCID
Venue
Psychological Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2020-12-10
Volume
32
Issue
1
Pages
120-131
ISSN
  • 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
  • 1467-9280
DOI
10.1177/0956797620968526
OpenAlex
W3112613183
Cited by
27
References
37
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 8 · 2020: 1
FWCI
5.67
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Kölner Universitäts PublikationsServer (Universität zu Köln) (publishedVersion)
  • Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (publishedVersion)
  • Kölner Universitäts PublikationsServer (Universität zu Köln) (acceptedVersion)
  • Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion)
  • DIAL (Catholic University of Leuven) (submittedVersion)
  • Social Science Open Access Repository (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) (submittedVersion)
  • Common Library Network (Der Gemeinsame Bibliotheksverbund) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Comunidad de Madrid
  • Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Psychology of Social Influence
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
Keywords
surveillance task, evaluative conditioning, attitude formation, implicit attitudes, replication
MeSH terms
Adult, Attitude, Awareness, Conditioning, Psychological, Conditioning, Classical, Humans, Mental Processes

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