In learning research, there is an ongoing debate about the role of awareness in human contingency learning. While a large part of the contingency learning (CL) effect is explained by episodic retrieval of previous responses (Giesen et al., 2020; Schmidt et al., 2020), a significant residual CL effect remains, which reflects a genuine impact of global contingencies on behavior (Rudolph & Rothermund, 2023; Xu & Mordkoff, 2020). In a pre-registered study, we tested the influence of contingency awareness on genuine CL by giving true or false instructions about the existing color-word contingencies. We found that genuine CL is modulated by awareness, as true (false) instructions amplified (reduced) the residual CL effect (see also Schmidt & De Houwer, 2012). Further, participants who were convinced of the falsely instructed contingencies until the end of the experiment actually showed a reversed residual CL effect, characterized by faster responses in low contingency trials that corresponded to the falsely instructed color-word combination. In sum, our findings suggest that genuine human CL, which is free from the influence of episodic retrieval, reflects propositional beliefs rather than association formation.