Attitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude–perception and attitude–behavior relations: An investigation of the 1984 presidential election.

Conducted a field investigation concerning the 1984 presidential election to test the hypothesis that the extent to which individuals' attitudes guide their subsequent perceptions of and behavior toward the attitude object is a function of the accessibility of those attitudes from memory. Attitudes toward each of the 2 candidates, Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, and the accessibility of those attitudes, as indicated by the latency of response to the attitudinal inquiry, were measured for 245 townspeople months before the election. Judgments of the performance of the candidates during the televised debates served as the measure of subsequent perceptions, and voting served as the measure of subsequent behavior. As predicted, both the attitude-perception and the attitude-behavior relations were moderated by attitude accessibility. The implications of these findings for theoretical models of the processes by which attitudes guide behavior, along with their practical implications for survey research, are discussed. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)