Asymmetrical attention allocation to dissimilar and similar attitudes

Abstract

Evaluations of others are sometimes influenced more by their dissimilar than similar attitudes. The authors investigated this similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry at the level of stimulus processing. In a variant of the Stroop task in Experiment 1 (N = 50), dissimilar attitudes of the participants interfered more with their color-naming performance than did similar attitudes. In a dual-task paradigm of Experiment 2 (N = 92), a greater attention allocation to dissimilar than similar attitudes disappeared when the cognitive load was low, but not when it was high. Findings illustrated the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry at the level of stimulus processing, and presented the asymmetry as another case of the fundamental positive-negative asymmetry. Implications and alternative interpretations of these findings are discussed. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.