Previous research argued that stereotypes differ primarily on the 2 dimensions of warmth/communion and competence/agency. We identify an empirical gap in support for this notion. The theoretical model constrains stereotypes a priori to these 2 dimensions; without this constraint, participants might spontaneously employ other relevant dimensions. We fill this gap by complementing the existing theory-driven approaches with a data-driven approach that allows an estimation of the spontaneously employed dimensions of stereotyping. Seven studies (total N = 4,451) show that people organize social groups primarily based on their agency/socioeconomic success (A), and as a second dimension, based on their conservative-progressive beliefs (B). Communion (C) is not found as a dimension by its own, but rather as an emergent quality in the two-dimensional space of A and B, resulting in a 2D ABC model of stereotype content about social groups. (PsycINFO Database Record

Repeated statements receive higher truth ratings than new statements. Given that repetition leads to greater experienced processing fluency, the author proposes that fluency is used in truth judgments according to its ecological validity. Thus, the truth effect occurs because people learn that fluency and truth tend to be positively correlated. Three experiments tested this notion. Experiment 1 replicated the truth effect by directly manipulating processing fluency; Experiment 2 reversed the effect by manipulating the correlation between fluency and truth in a learning phase. Experiment 3 generalized this reversal by showing a transfer of a negative correlation between perceptual fluency (due to color contrast) and truth to truth judgments when fluency is due to prior exposure (i.e., repetition).

The authors postulate and show a speed advantage in the processing of positive information and hypothesize that this advantage is caused by the higher density of positive information in memory: Positive information is more similar to other positive information, in comparison with the similarity of negative information to other negative information. This "density" hypothesis is supported by multidimensional scaling of evaluative stimuli and response latency experiments. The relevance and explanatory power of the hypothesis is demonstrated by secondary data analyses of prior research in the evaluative priming paradigm. The final discussion is concerned with further theoretical implications of the density hypothesis, its generality and limitations, and its relation to other theoretical conceptions and applications.

Whether human evaluative conditioning can occur without contingency awareness has been the subject of an intense and ongoing debate for decades, troubled by a wide array of methodological difficulties. Following recent methodological innovations, the available evidence currently points to the conclusion that evaluative conditioning effects do not occur without contingency awareness. In a simulation, we demonstrate, however, that these innovations are strongly biased toward the conclusion that evaluative conditioning requires contingency awareness, confounding the measurement of contingency memory with conditioned attitudes. We adopt a process-dissociation procedure to separate the memory and attitude components. In 4 studies, the attitude parameter is validated using existing attitudes and applied to probe for contingency-unaware evaluative conditioning. A fifth experiment incorporates a time-delay manipulation confirming the dissociability of the attitude and memory components. The results indicate that evaluative conditioning can produce attitudes without conscious awareness of the contingencies. Implications for theories of evaluative conditioning and associative learning are discussed.

The fluency of cognitive processes influences many judgments: Fluently processed statements are judged to be true, fluently processed instances are judged to be frequent, and fluently processed names are judged to be famous. According to a cue-learning approach, these effects of experienced fluency arise because the fluency cue is interpreted differentially in accordance with its learned validity. Two experiments tested this account by manipulating the fluency cue's validity. Fluency was manipulated by color contrast (Experiment 1) and by required mental rotation (Experiment 2). If low fluency was correlated with a required affirmative or "old" response (and high fluency with a negative or "new" response) in a training phase, participants showed a reversal of the classic pattern in the recognition phase: Low-fluency stimuli had a higher probability than high-fluency stimuli to be classified as old. Thus, the interpretation and therefore the impact of fluency depended on the cue's learned validity.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a central mechanism for both classic and current theories of attitude formation. In contrast to Pavlovian conditioning, it is often conceptualized as a form of evaluative learning that occurs without awareness of the conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus (CS-US) contingencies. In the present research, the authors directly address this point by assessing the respective roles of US valence awareness and US identity awareness in attitude formation through EC. Across 4 experiments, EC was assessed with evaluative ratings as well as evaluative priming measures, and the impact of valence and identity awareness on EC was evaluated. EC effects on priming and rating measures occurred only for CSs for which participants could report the associated US valence, and US identity awareness did not further contribute to EC. This finding was obtained both for semantically meaningless (i.e., nonword letter sequences) and meaningful (i.e., consumer products) CSs. These results provide further support for the critical role of contingency awareness in EC, albeit valence awareness, not identity awareness.

The home advantage is one of the best established phenomena in sports (Courneya & Carron, 1992), and crowd noise has been suggested as one of its determinants (Nevill & Holder, 1999). However, the psychological processes that mediate crowd noise influence and its contribution to the home advantage are still unclear. We propose that crowd noise correlates with the criteria referees have to judge. As crowd noise is a valid cue, referee decisions are strongly influenced by crowd noise. Yet, when audiences are not impartial, a home advantage arises. Using soccer as an exemplar, we show the relevance of this influence in predicting outcomes of real games via a database analysis. Then we experimentally demonstrate the influence of crowd noise on referees' yellow cards decisions in soccer. Finally, we discuss why the focus on referee decisions is useful, and how more experimental research could benefit investigations of the home advantage.

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