Implicit learning in attractiveness evaluation: The role of conformity and analytical processing.

Abstract

We address the question how people's opinion and features of information interact in the process of indirect social influence. Implicit learning was considered as a mechanism for conformity in social perception. We carried out 2 experiments using a hidden covariation detection paradigm. In a learning phase, participants memorized a set of female photographs presented together with their attractiveness ratings. The ratings correlated with the hairstyle of the photographed women. The participants who did not consciously detect this correlation demonstrated a systematic bias toward the correlation when evaluating the new stimulus persons. Information about the source of the ratings in the learning phase (other people's opinions or nonsocial sources) did not modulate learning. Learning was not observed when participants critically evaluated the ratings during the memorization phase. The study shows that (a) conformity may be based not only on reinforcement learning mechanism (as was previously suggested) but also on unsupervised implicit learning; (b) implicit learning occurs automatically irrespective of the context (social or not); and (c) a critical attitude toward learned material may prevent implicit learning from being manifested in a test phase. We conclude that indirect social influence may be affected by people's opinion toward the provided information. The study contributes to both implicit learning and social perception research.

Social Conformity Updates the Neural Representation of Facial Attractiveness

“…Using a similar minimal group manipulation, previous research also showed that people did not exclusively conform to in-group members when no oxytocin was given (Stallen et al 2012). Moreover, Ivanchei et al (2019) found that participants would comply with feedback regardless of whether it came from humans or computers. Together, these results provide converging evidence that public compliance is not susceptible to the source of influence.…”

Metacognitive awareness is needed for analogical transfer between dissimilar tasks

“…It has been shown with other paradigms many times since, e.g. in the form of verbal overshadowing (Fallshore & Schooler, 1993), concurrent verbalization (Dickson et al, 2000; see review in Moroshkina et al, 2019), or concurrent metacognitive reports (Ivanchei et al, 2019;Ivanchei & Moroshkina, 2018). There are several accounts of this effect.…”

“…transfer condition in Experiment 1), verbalization is detrimental to performance. That could happen because participants switch from holistic to analytical processing when asked to verbalize their decisions (Ivanchei et al, 2019;Ivanchei & Moroshkina, 2018;Moroshkina et al, 2019).…”

Implicit and explicit learning of socio-emotional information in a dynamic system control task

“…Considering this and the fact that IL is not a homogenous process (e.g., Pretz et al, 2010;Reber, 2013;Saevland & Norman, 2016), we find it sensible to infer the functioning of IL in the social environment based on tasks employing socially relevant surface stimuli. With several noteworthy exceptions, the literature offers but a limited set of such tasks (e.g., Braverman, 2005;Costea, 2018a;Heerey & Velani, 2010;Ivanchei et al, 2019;Lewicki, 1986;Norman & Price, 2012;Ziori & Dienes, 2015). We consider that in order to increase their external validity, IL tasks should use surface stimuli that are more relevant for social functioning.…”

“…IL has been examined in relation to both typical and atypical social functioning. Appealing to typical social functioning, Ivanchei et al (2019), as well as Lewicki (1986), found that associations between certain psychological characteristics and physical features of other people can be learned unconsciously. Strachan et al (2019) recently showed that statistical regularities regarding other people's behaviorspecifically, whether a person provides mostly facilitative or misleading information -can also be learned unconsciously.…”