Asymmetric Association of Liking and Disliking Judgments: So What's Not to Like?

We find that liking and disliking judgments appear asymmetrically linked in memory. In experiment 1 liking queries about objects were answered faster than disliking queries, irrespective of instructions to (1) simply examine the objects, (2) consider one's liking for the objects, (3) consider one's disliking for the objects, or (4) make an irrelevant judgment. Moreover, liking judgments appeared to be made spontaneously, while disliking judgments appeared to result from a more controlled process. Experiment 2 replicated these results with extremely dislikable and extremely likable stimuli. Experiment 3 revealed that disliking judgments prime liking judgments more than liking judgments prime disliking. Copyright 2004 by the University of Chicago.