Feeling prepared increases confidence in any accessible thoughts affecting evaluation unrelated to the original domain of preparation

The present research shows that preparedness increases reliance on thoughts irrelevant to the domain of preparation. In Study 1, participants wrote positive or negative thoughts about a tuition increase proposal. Next, participants were primed with words related to preparedness or positive control words and reported their evaluations of the initial proposal. Consistent with self-validation theory, results showed that the effect of the direction of thoughts (positive/negative) on attitudes toward tuition was significantly greater when participants were primed with preparedness than control words. A second study replicated and generalized these findings to the domain of social interaction, using a different topic (genetically modified food), and a more natural yet indirect induction of preparedness (expectation to prepare for negative feedback). Study 3 extended these findings by comparing the validating effects of an indirect (expectation) versus a direct (implementation intention) induction of preparedness. Consistent with self-validation theory, moreover, both studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that preparedness and thought confidence mediated the effects of the preparedness manipulations on attitude extremity even though the domain of preparation was unrelated to the domain of evaluation.