Affective learning as a higher psychological process: a microgenetic analysis of evaluative conditioning from a sociocultural approach (Aprendizaje afectivo como proceso psicológico superior: análisis microgenético del condicionamiento evaluativo desde un enfoque sociocultural)

ABSTRACT The hypothesis that affective learning is mediated by social devices was applied to experimental research conducted in evaluative conditioning, which refers to the affective learning of pleasant and unpleasant outcomes by an association of stimuli. Although it is believed that this association is partly an effect of the experimental procedure, the implications of this have not been explored. Could affective learning be understood to be a socially mediated process that requires a specific setting? This explanation is discussed from Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach and the concept of device, emphasizing both the subject’s and the context’s active way of becoming in the acquisition of tastes. We also carried out a microgenetic analysis of the experiments described in two articles that are representative of this paradigm to show that evaluative conditioning is the product of a learning device that is part of the social history of the subject’s psychological processes.