Distorted evaluative space: the theory of relativity in evaluative judgment

The proposed research explores a contextual perspective in multiple object situations. Specifically, I focus on the context effect created by an object associated with strong attitude on the subsequent evaluative judgment of a target object. Through five studies, I find that the context effect of a strong attitude object is greater for objects with neutral-strength attitudes than for the objects with very strong or very weak attitudes, which result in a curved relationship between the magnitude of the context effect and the strength associated with attitudes towards targets. In addition, I find that the direction of the context effect of a strong attitude object is determined by the valence of the attitudes towards the target objects: targets with positive attitudes become less positive, and those with negative attitudes become less negative. That is, the results of the context effects represent as a form of decreased extremity of the attitudes towards targets. More importantly, it is found that these differing magnitudes and directions of the context effect of an object with strong attitude finally result in evaluative space distortion. I trace the underlying process mechanism of theses effects and find that: 1) the divergent magnitudes of the context effects are the result of the differing level of comparison difficulty between a contextual object and target objects; and 2) the divergent directions of the context effects are the product of perceived uncertainty about the attitude towards target objects.