The Impact of Conditioned Expectations on Perception and Interpretation of Ambiguous Social Behaviors

Negative expectations about an event may shape the way it is experienced and interpreted. Prior work shows that aversive expectations can amplify the perceived unpleasantness and intensity of aversive stimuli, a process called aversification. The present study extends this research to socially relevant behaviors, investigating how conditioned expectations influence the perception and interpretation of ambiguous behaviors. To examine these expectation effects, behaviors in our study are operationalized using a set of verbs categorized as neutral, slightly negative, moderately negative, very negative or ambiguous based on the valence and ambiguity ratings obtained from a pilot study. By means of classical conditioning, these behaviors are differentially associated with two face identities serving as CS_negative and CS_neutral, respectively. During the acquisition phase, CS_negative is paired primarily with negative verbs (slightly negative: 20%, moderately negative: 30%, very negative: 20%) and also with neutral verbs (30%). CS_neutral is paired primarily with neutral verbs (70%) but also with slightly negative verbs (30%). In the test phase, both CS types are paired equally frequently with ambiguous verbs (50%). CS_negative is additionally paired with negative verbs (35%: slightly negative 10%, moderately negative 15%, very negative 10%) and neutral verbs (15%), whereas CS_neutral is paired with neutral verbs (35%) and slightly negative verbs (15%). This design allows us to assess whether prior expectations influence the perception and interpretation of ambiguous behaviors. We will collect and analyze subjective ratings of behavior unpleasantness and interpretation valence. We hypothesize that ratings of ambiguous behaviors will be more negative following CS_negative than CS_neutral. These findings will provide insight into the social dimension of aversification, exploring how expectations about a person’s behavior shape perception and interpretation of their actions.