DOI: 10.6129/CJP.20150202
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2015, Vol.57, No.3, 261-280

Affect Misattribution Procedure as an Automatic Evaluative Reaction Measurement

Meng-Ning Tsai（Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University）；Lun-Ting Wang（Department of Psychology, Fo Guang University）；Hung-Yu Lin（Department of Psychology, Fo Guang University）

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the suitability of the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) as an
automatic evaluative reaction measure of attitude. Two types of attitude objects were chosen to test the  reliability, validity and the predictability of behaviors of the AMP. Using the AMP, Study 1 found that those whom had already given up smoking responded to smoking cues with a clearly negative affect, whereas the smokers’ responses depended on individual differences. The differentiation ability of the AMP duplicated the results of previous studies. Moreover, the AMP on smoking cues also tended to predict smokers’ behavioral tendencies to smoke in the future. Study 2 explored junior high school students’ attitudes toward a sensitive issue: the effeminate males. The pattern of results in Study 2 mostly matched the predictions using the dual pathway mode. That is, only self-reported attitude could predict the controlled behavior, and the automatic attitude measured by the AMP showed a larger relationship with the spontaneous behavior than the other measures. Across the two studies, the AMP displayed its advantages in ease of use, both for young students and the elderly; high reliability; and good behavioral predictions, especially for spontaneous behavior.

Keywords: automatic evaluative reaction, self-report attitude, behavior prediction, affect misattribution  procedure, dual pathway mode