Accessibility is a matter of trust: Dispositional and contextual distrust blocks accessibility effects Tali Kleiman ⇑ , Noa Sher, Andrey Elster, Ruth Mayo ⇑ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel article info Article history: Received 25 February 2013 Revised 17 May 2015 Accepted 1 June 2015 Keywords: Distrust Accessibility effects Priming Situated-cognition abstract Distrust poses a challenge to human cognition because it signals that information from the environment should not be taken at face value. Accordingly, in the present research, we argue and show that distrust, both as a chronic disposition and as a contextual factor, blocks accessibility effects. We report five studies in which distrust is either measured (Studies 2 and 3) or manipulated (Studies 1, 4 and 5), and test the ‘‘distrust-blocks-accessibility hypothesis’’ on both verbal and non-verbal accessibility effects. We first elucidate the nature of the distrust mindset and show that distrust inherently entails the activation of alternatives to the original accessible concept thus undermining the preeminence of the prime (Study 1). We then show that distrust blocks accessibility using the ‘‘Donald’’ task (Study 2), the ‘‘Halo Effect’’ task (Study 3), an embodiment paradigm (Study 4), and an applied context of web advertising (Study 5). We conclude that the human mind is sensitive and flexible enough to block any influence from the environment if it seems unreliable. We discuss the novel implications of this perspective for both distrust and accessibility research. Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Imagine searching for information on the Internet when sud- denly a pop-up ad appears: ‘‘You are the 10,000th visitor! Click here to claim your prize.’’ If basic accessibility effects were in play here, winning associations would have come to your mind and may have led you to click on the ad to see what your prize was. But do you click on the ad? Or do you freeze and take a step back as negative associations of computer viruses pop into your head? Such a strategic response toward a specific untrustworthy source is unsurprising. A novel possibility, however, is that this rejection mode may be elicited by any general distrust cue, external or inter- nal, and affect basic cognitive processes. In the present research, we advocate for the possibility that dis- trust, either as a chronic disposition or as a contextual factor, attenuates (or even eliminates) accessibility effects. We argue that inherent to distrust is the consideration of alternatives to a given concept. This distrust-invoked consideration of alternatives in turn dilutes the influence of an accessible concept, resulting in the weakening of accessibility effects. In what follows, we lay out the logic underlying our distrust-blocks-accessibility hypothesis. We then present five studies that demonstrate the mechanism under- lying the hypothesized effect and its implications in various domains. 1.1. Accessibility of mental representations A core idea in social cognitive theory is that cognitions, feelings, or actions can be affected by the specific mental representation that is currently accessible (Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trötschel, 2001; Higgins, 1996; Schwarz, 2009). Numerous studies have demonstrated that a specific, temporarily accessible mental representation has profound effects on response generation (Schwarz, Strack, & Mai, 1991), action (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996; Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998), emotions (Lerner, Small, & Loewenstein, 2004), goal pursuit (Aarts, Gollwitzer, & Hassin, 2004; Bargh et al., 2001), and person percep- tion (Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982; Srull & Wyer, 1979). However, people do not always use accessible mental represen- tations in subsequent judgments. When individuals believe that a currently salient concept in their minds became accessible for an unjustified reason (e.g., in an attempt to influence their judgment), they are motivated to not be affected by it. Such motivation often leads to correction attempts, resulting in either blocking of the accessible construct’s influence altogether (as if it were never there) or overcorrecting for it, thus producing a contrast, rather http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.06.001 0010-0277/Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding authors at: Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. E-mail addresses: tali.kleiman@mail.huji.ac.il (T. Kleiman), ruti.mayo@huji.ac.il (R. Mayo). Cognition 142 (2015) 333–344 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cognition journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/COGNIT