No Evidence for the Affective Expectation Model: Replication of Geers and Lassiter (2003)

According to the Affective Expectation Model (AEM), people’s evaluations of experiences depend on their expectations. This generally happens in an assimilative way (positive expectations lead to positive experiences) unless there is a strong discrepancy between the expectation and the experience. In this case, a contrast effect occurs (positive expectations lead to negative experiences). We conducted an online replication of Study 1 from Geers and Lassiter (2003) where affective experiences were positively correlated with affective expectations for people with a low need for cognition and negatively correlated for people with a high need for cognition. None of the original effects could be replicated, that is, affective experiences did not differ between the groups and were not moderated by need for cognition. We discuss potential limitations of the AEM. The study’s preregistration, data, and materials are available online (https://osf.io/rge23/).