Affective assimilation and contrast: Effects of expectations and prior stimulus exposure

The affective expectation model (AEM) proposes that expectations can cause both assimilation and contrast effects in affective experience. Specifically, the model contends that when a stimulus or experience is discrepant with an affective expectation, and an individual notices this discrepancy, affective reactions will be contrasted with the expectation. When the discrepancy goes unnoticed, however, it is anticipated that affective reactions will be assimilated toward the expectation. Two experiments were conducted to examine the potential role of prior stimulus exposure in the AEM. In both experiments, participants who had prior exposure to an expectation-inconsistent stimulus were more likely than controls to contrast their affective reactions with the affective expectation. Conversely, participants who had no prior exposure to the expectation-inconsistent stimulus were more likely than controls to assimilate their affective reactions toward the expectation. These findings demonstrate that prior stimulus exposure is an important situational moderator of the effect of affective expectations.