A critical review of classical conditioning effects on consumer behavior Chanthika Pornpitakpan University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China article info Article history: Received 15 July 2011 Revised 14 June 2012 Accepted 3 July 2012 Available online 28 July 2012 Keywords: Classical conditioning Pavlovian conditioning Literature review abstract This paper reviews extant research in classical conditioning effects in consumer behavior and advertising contexts to determine whether they are real or illusory. The empirical results reveal that in cases where classical conditioning effects were found, they could be countermined by the deficiencies in research methodologies, demand artifacts, the mediating role of contingency awareness, or some alternative mechanisms. In cases where the effects were not observed, the failure could be attributed to violations of the conditions for classical conditioning to occur or absence of contingency and demand awareness. It is concluded that thus far there has been no convincing evidence for classical conditioning effects on consumer behavior. Suggestions for future research in this area are presented. Ó 2012 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Inspired by classical conditioning principles, many ads show the advertised product together with celebrities or pleasant stimuli (ob- jects, scenes, persons, and so forth) once or several times with a hope that positive feelings from those stimuli will transfer to the product and thus inducing its liking. Classical conditioning has been generally accepted in consumer behavior literature as a mechanism producing advertising effects (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2010), as a pos- sible mechanism in the peripheral route of persuasion (Edell and Burke, 1984; Petty et al., 1983), and as pertinent in passive con- sumption context (Gorn, 1982; Greenwald and Leavitt, 1984). According to the classical conditioning model of learning, which is based on Pavlov’s (1927) work, an unconditioned stimulus (here- after referred to as US or USs for the plural form) is a biologically significant stimulus such as food, pain, electric shock that gener- ates a response (for example, salivation when seeing certain foods) from the start; this response is referred to as an unconditioned re- sponse. Repeated pairings of a conditioned stimulus (hereafter re- ferred to as CS or CSs for the plural form, for example, the ring of a bell) with an US (for example, meat paste) will enable the CS to eli- cit a conditioned response (for example, salivation) in an uncon- scious and automatic manner. When the US is an affect (Razran, 1938), for instance, music and humor, the conditioning may be re- ferred to as affective conditioning. 1.1. Types of classical conditioning Within the paradigm of classical conditioning, it has been pro- posed that a distinction be made between different types of condi- tioning, namely, signal learning and evaluative learning (Baeyens and De Houwer, 1995; Baeyens et al., 1998; Hammerl and Grabitz, 1996). In the signal-learning notion of classical conditioning, an organism engages a higher cognitive process and learns the ‘‘if- then’’ relationship between the CS and the US (Rescorla and Wagner, 1972). Repeated pairings of the two stimuli to be associ- ated is essential in establishing and strengthening their associative link (Martindale, 1991). Through a signal learning process (Rescorla, 1988), increased repetition of the pairing of two stimuli fortifies confidence that the presence of one stimulus predicts the presence of the other. The contingency or statistical correlation between the CS and the US is an important determinant of signal learning. Evaluative (attitude) conditioning, on the other hand, concerns the acquisition of preferences and refers to the change in valence of initially neutral CSs after pairing with positive or negative USs. Evaluative conditioning is usually conceptualized as a form of eval- uative learning that occurs without awareness of the CS–US con- tingencies (De Houwer et al., 2001; Stahl et al., 2009). In a typical evaluative conditioning study (e.g., De Houwer et al., 2001; Walther, 2002), a subjectively neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a subjectively liked or disliked stimulus, leading to a valence shift in the formerly neutral stimulus. That is, the CS in an evaluative conditioning paradigm does not attain a predictive value but simply obtains the affective qualities of the US. Three major characteristics of evaluative conditioning are as follows. First, evaluative conditioning does not seem to depend on contingency awareness of the CS and the US (Baeyens et al., 1990; De Houwer et al., 2001). Second, it does not appear to rely on the statistical CS–US contingency but seems to be sensitive to contiguity, that is, to spatiotemporal CS–US co-occurrences (Baeyens et al., 1993; De Houwer et al., 2001). Therefore, weak contingency in an evaluative learning paradigm (e.g., single CS or US presentations in the acquisition phase) does not automatically 1441-3582/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2012.07.002 E-mail addresses: ynvynv@yahoo.com, ynvynv@gmail.com Australasian Marketing Journal 20 (2012) 282–296 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Australasian Marketing Journal journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/amj