It's the Difference that Counts: Expectancy/Experience Discrepancy Moderates the Use of Ease of Retrieval in Attitude Judgments

When people are asked to bring forward arguments in favor of or against a position, ease or difficulty of retrieving these arguments can influence subsequent attitude judgments. The present paper argues that the discrepancy between the actual retrieval experience and a previous implicit standard (or expectancy) prompts this effect rather than the absolute level of ease. In Experiment 1, priming an implicit standard and simultaneously keeping the retrieval task constant induced a discrepancy. Merely shifting standards elicited ease-of-retrieval effects. Experiments 2 and 3 varied the task difficulty and the implicit standard independently from each other. Ease of retrieval was used as information for attitude judgments more when it was discrepant with the induced standard than when it was congruent with the standard.