Primed to Like Yourself – Can Self-evaluative Cognition Be Changed by Learning Contingencies of Self-evaluative Statements and Truth-values?

Measures of automatic propositional self-evaluation have been shown to predict adverse outcomes above and beyond measures of deliberate self-evaluation, thereby suggesting an independent source of automatic self-evaluation that might also provide a pathway to change self-esteem and its correlates. Based on theoretical models of automatic, proposition-based evaluative cognition, we hypothesize that automatic self-evaluation can be changed by raising the accessibility of specific truth-values in the presence of self-positive and self-negative statements. To test this hypothesis, we exposed N = 160 participants to a learning procedure based on the Propositional Evaluation Paradigm on three consecutive days. This procedure implemented contingencies between self-positive statements and truth in one condition and between self-positive statements and falsity in the other condition. Investigating the performance of the participants in the learning procedure itself, we found evidence for short-term effects of the contingencies as well as cumulative effects across days. However, the learning procedure had no effect on external criteria such as questionnaires of affect and self-esteem as well as the preference for one’s own initials. Implications and suggestions for future research on the malleability of automatic propositional self-evaluation are discussed.