Affective factors play an important role in the development and maintenance of preferences. The representation of affect can take a variety of forms, including motor responses and somatic reactions. This explains why cognitive methods of preference change that are directed at only one form of representation have seldom been effective.

1. Affective and Cognitive Factors
in Preferences
Zajonc, R. B., & Markus, H. (1982). Affective and cognitive
factors in preferences. Journal of consumer research, 9(2),
123-131.
Presented by Chhagan Donode DSP16HH010003

2. Objective of paper
 Most of the literature on development and change of
preferences has cognitive emphasis.
 To study, how affective factors influence the preferences?
 To study the interplay between affective and cognitive
factors in the course of preference development.
 To understand how affective factors supports
development and change of preference.
 To understand how cognitive method of preference
change that are directed at only one form of
representation have not often been effective.

3. Preferences: Traditional and Alternate View
 One of the clearest manifestation of puzzling interplay of cognitive and affective
influence found in food industry.
 How preferences are acquired and how they are modified?
 Social support coming from all neighbours and relatives.
 Many attitude can be formed without the affective support by means of cognitive
factors alone. E.g. Clothing, perfumes.
 Thus , antecedents of preferences may involve cognitive and affective
components in a variety of combinations.
 In some cases cognitive components may be dominant, in some the cognitive
and affective factors may interact with each other and other cases the affective
factors may be dominant and primary.
 Preferences are primarily affectively based behavioral phenomena.

4. Preferences as combined Utilities
 Preferences occupy a very important position in social psychology.
 They are conceptualised as the subjective counterpart of object utilities
and values.
 Preferences and utilities are understood by decomposing the overall
utilities and values into their more elementary components, each of which
has own utilities.
 Analysis of preference is analysis of cognitive representation of the
features of the objects (why to prefer X over Y).
 There are no priori grounds for distinguishing between utilities and other
features of object in analysing preferences.
 In attempt to change a given preference, it this necessary to indentify the
features of the object and try to influence the persons evaluation of these
features. (e.g. Head & Shoulder – Anti Dandruff effect)

5. Preference as cognitive Construct
 Preferences for an object can be radically changed with experiences
while it’s properties remain constant.
 Complete analysis of preferences dynamics and antecedents must
involve an interaction between object properties and the history of the
individual’s experiences with the alternatives among which the choice is
made.
 Individual strive to supply consistent justification for their choice
behavior.
 Only experimental manipulation of attributes could reveal their
contribution to the choice.
 Feeling of preference is generated upon the encoding of the specific
properties of the object, after the evaluation of their utilities, computation
of the individual component utilities into a joint product that represent the
overall performance (Zajonc 1980).

6. Role of cognitive factors in preferences
 According to traditional approach, affect in preferences attaches
itself to cognitive representations of the properties and attributes
of the object.
 In contrast, consider the possibility that the judgment and choice
process can be quite the opposite.
 Under some circumstances, affect or preference comes as the
first experience (tasty food).
 The cognitions that have generally been taken to be the very
basis of this preference can actually occur afterwards perhaps as
justification.
 There are many circumstances in which the affective reaction
precedes the very cognitive appraisal on which the affective
reaction is presumed to be based.

7. Acquiring Preferences Through Exposures
 When objects are presented to the individual on repeated
occasions, the mere exposure is capable of making the individual's
attitude toward these objects more positive.
 Liking for familiar objects as depending on subjective factors and,
in particular, on the subjective feelings of recognition.
 The exposure effect is indeed a remarkable psychological
phenomenon. It is a basic process in preference and attitude
formation and change.
 Exposure effect represents a very basic process that has
considerable adaptive significance,
 In one way or another, the organism will develop preferences for
objects with which it has repeated experience.

8. Acquiring Preferences Through Exposures
 According to the traditional view, recognition was thought to be the basic
necessary condition for preference occurrence, but in fact not necessary.
 The most convincing results come from studies of exposure effects in
which the stimulus exposure during the first session takes place under
suboptimal conditions.
 Old stimuli were liked more than objectively new stimuli, regardless of the
subject’s impression of their familiarity (Maltin 1971).
 If recognition memory represents one of the basic cognitive processes
that the traditional theory hypothesizes to be responsible for an affective
influence in this case, then it follows that affective change may take place
without the participation of these cognitive processes.
 Most convincing results come form studies of exposure effect in which the
stimulus exposure during the first session takes place under suboptimal
condition.

9. Affect independent of Cognition
 In general, affect is partially independent of cognition and that
preferences are as well.
 Preference has been developed out of cognitive material, the
preference may eventually become functionally autonomous and
lose its original cognitive justification.
 According to the theoretical argument, cognitive participation is not
necessary for the occurrence of an affective reaction.
 Cognitive process always precedes evaluative Judgements (Mandler
1982).
 If by "cognition" we mean a non-sensory process that transforms
sensory input and produces or recruits representations, then the
question of cognitive participation in affect is reduced to the presence
of representational processes.

10. Affective and Cognitive Factors in Attitudes
 It is reasonable that there are significant differences in
attitudes and preferences depending on their basis of origin.
 Preferences acquired in infancy and childhood are formed
primarily on affective basis.
 To change an attitude that has evolved primarily from affective
sources and so has considerable extra cognitive supports,
may require methods different from those needed to change
an attitude based on cognition.
 If preferences are to be changed, both the affective and the
cognitive elements must be carefully examined, because in
the end, it is the affective element that must be altered.
 Psychotherapy is one of the method.

11. Preference and attitude development and
change
 Efforts to change attitudes in which the affective components have been
fully developed before the cognitive elements became articulated are
likely to meet with failure.
 An effective method would have to take direct aim at the affective
component and bring in affective consequence.
 Attitudes that have a firm emotional basis, developed prior to cognitive
elaboration, can be changed only by methods that have a direct
emotional influence on the one hand, and that bypass cognitive
components on the other
 The affective component and the cognitive component of the attitude
may develop very much in tandem; in fact, most of the cognitive
elements may become consolidated before one's preference is fully
developed.
 Cognitions may form an important basis for the preference and thus
figure significantly in its formation.

12. Continued....
 It is this knowledge structure that is the original source of positive
feelings and the major basis of preference formation.
 It is possible to change preference by cognitive means alone only
in the early stages of preference formation, because even when a
preference has been built up from cognitions, its affect may
become partly or fully autonomous and independent of the
cognitive elements that were originally its basis.
 With the passage of time and due to habitual contact with and use
of the corkscrew, one tends to forget its particular advantages
because contact and comparison with other designs is precluded.
 Current attachment and affection are held in place by reciprocal
"good feeling“ and by habitual patterns of positive interaction.

13. Somatic Representations of Preferences
 In attitude research, attitude was perceived as a motor disposition.
 Not only preferences, but all affect has a significant motor
component. The expression of emotion occurs above all at the
motor level.
 Social psychologists have tried to see what information could be
given to a person so that s/he would become fond of some item.
 The study of preferences involves knowledge about the interaction
between affect and cognition.
 Motor component of affect, which is primarily the expressive aspect
of emotion, can also serve representational and memory functions.
 It is quite reasonable to say that when a person stores affect, he
stores are motor tendencies and other somatic manifestations.

14. Continued......
 He also stores subjective and cognitive features of affect, which neither
substitute for nor preclude the presence of other forms of representation.
 Attitudes and preferences have a significant motor component that can
be a postural tendency or some other somatic form.
 Preferences have cognitive correlates, they may become functionally
autonomous of these cognitive correlates and persist merely by virtue of
the behavioral tendencies that have become their expressions.
 Once they are autonomous, behavioral tendencies that represent
attitudes and preferences are hard to change, particularly if only
cognitive means are to be employed.
 It is difficult to change attitude and preferences by cognitive method.
These method do not reach the motor system and other representational
system of organism.

15. Motor Basis of Preferences and Attitude
Change
 The somatic representations of a person's affect toward a
given object can gain autonomy from his knowledge
structure about that object.
 Particular motor responses of the lips, tongue, and
oesophagus are acquired and attached to the sensory
input.
 A fixed sequence of eating the various courses of meals
develops as a strong habit.
 Muscular responses may have parameters that represent
the person's affective predisposition.

16. Critique
 These theories should be proved with the empirical
research.

17. Additional reading
 Edwards, K., & Von Hippel, W. (1995). Hearts and minds: The
priority of affective versus cognitive factors in person
perception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(10),
996-1011.
 In two experiments, affect-based and cognition-based attitudes
toward a person were induced by varying the sequence of affective
and cognitive information presented to subjects while holding the
content of these communications constant.
 In Experiment 1, affective and cognitive persuasive appeals were
created by means of a similar order manipulation.
 Experiment 2, affective and cognitive persuasive appeals were
induced through a focus manipulation.
 Results indicated that affect-based attitudes were most effectively
changed by affective persuasive appeals, whether these appeals
were produced by an order manipulation or a focus manipulation.
 Affect-based attitudes also tended to be expressed with greater
confidence than cognition-based attitudes

18. Thank you