Assessing the Role of Contingency Awareness in Attitudinal Conditioning with Implications for Advertising Research
通过两个实验发现，偶然性意识（即意识到条件刺激与无条件刺激之间的关联模式）是态度条件化成功的关键，为广告设计提供了理论指导。
The authors investigate a basic mechanism for shaping attitudes that has largely been ignored by empirical researchers in the marketing discipline. Two experiments are reported in which traditional Pavlovian procedures are merged with a view of conditioning that encourages theorizing about attendant cognitive processes. The data indicate that contingency learning or awareness may be a requirement for successful attitudinal conditioning. Contingency awareness entails conscious recognition of the relational pattern between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli used in a conditioning procedure. In experiment 1, the conditioning procedure affected the evaluative judgments of subjects who were classified ( post hoc) as contingency aware. In experiment 2, instructions that promoted contingency learning as part of the procedure again influenced participants’ attitude judgments. Implications are offered for theory development and for constructing advertisements to foster attitudinal conditioning. Specific suggestions for further research on how one might structure television commercials to foster contingency learning also are presented.