The Role of Causal Attributions in Observational Conditioning

Our behavior towards a stimulus can change as a result of observing a regularity between that stimulus and someone else’s emotional reaction, a type of social learning referred to as observational conditioning. We explore the idea that causal attributions (i.e., the extent to which the observer attributes the model’s reaction to the stimulus) play an important role in observational conditioning effects. In three experiments (total N = 665), participants watched videos in which one cookie was followed by a positive reaction and another cookie was followed by a negative reaction, after which their own evaluations of each cookie were measured via self-reports and an implicit association test (IAT). Critically, we manipulated whether the observed reactions were high or low in terms of distinctiveness (Experiments 1a and 1b) or consensus and consistency (Experiment 2). These three variables are known to influence stimulus attributions and were therefore predicted to moderate observational conditioning effects. In line with our predictions, high distinctiveness (Experiments 1a and 1b) and high consensus and consistency (Experiment 2) both resulted in larger observational conditioning effects, with one exception: high distinctiveness did not lead to larger changes in automatic evaluations (i.e., IAT effects). Taken together, our findings suggest that causal attributions play an important role in observational conditioning. We outline more elaborate analyses of the attributional processes that are involved and suggest potential future directions for research on observational conditioning.