Schematic effects of social attitudes on information processing and recall.

Examined the proposal that social attitudes have schematic effects on the processing of attitude-relevant information. It was predicted that (a) such attitudes schemata would be bipolar, with information organized around "agree" and "disagree" poles; (b) attitude-relevant information would be more easily processed and, hence, judged more readily if it fits these schematic poles; and (c) schematic fit would also facilitate recall of attitude-relevant information. 23 undergraduates were asked to make pro/anti and agree/disagree ratings of 54 attitude statements on 3 issues. Ratings and decision times were recorded. The next day, Ss engaged in a free-recall task. Both schematic hypotheses were supported: Faster judgments and higher recall were found with items that were extremely agreed or disagreed with than with items that elicited less extreme agree/disagree ratings. It is shown that these effects are not due to idiosyncracies of either individual items or individual Ss. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit ambivalence from attitude change: An exploration of the PAST model.

Traditional models of attitude change have assumed that when people appear to have changed their attitudes in response to new information, their old attitudes disappear and no longer have any impact. The present research suggests that when attitudes change, the old attitude can remain in memory and influence subsequent behavior. Four experiments are reported in which initial attitudes were created and then changed (or not) with new information. In each study, the authors demonstrate that when people undergo attitude change, their old and new attitudes can interact to produce evaluative responses consistent with a state of implicit ambivalence. In Study 1, individuals whose attitudes changed were more neutral on a measure of automatic evaluation. In Study 2, attitude change led people to show less confidence on an implicit but not an explicit measure. In Studies 3 and 4, people whose attitudes changed engaged in greater processing of attitude-relevant information than did individuals whose attitudes were not changed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of attitudes on memory: an affair to remember

Many theories of the effects of attitudes on memory for attitude-relevant information would predict that attitudinally congenial information should be more memorable than uncongenial information. Yet, this meta-analysis showed that this congeniality effect is inconsistent across the experiments in this research literature and small when these effects are aggregated. The tendency of the congeniality effect to decrease over the years spanned by this literature appeared to reflect the weaker methods used in the earlier studies. The effect was stronger in 2 kinds of earlier experiments that may be tinged with artifact: those in which the coding of recall measures was not known to be blind and those that used recognition measures that were not corrected for bias. Nonetheless, several additional characteristics of the studies moderated the congeniality effect and suggested that both attitude structure and motivation to process attitude-relevant information are relevant to understanding the conditions under which people have superior memory for attitudinally congenial or uncongenial information.     

On-line and memory-based aspects of individual and group target judgments.

Ss were given instruction sets to induce either on-line or memory-based processing while reading behavioral statements about individual and group targets. Impression-set instructions induced on-line judgments, and comprehensibility-set (comp) instructions induced memory-based judgments regardless of target type. More important, with nondirective instructions (memory set), natural differences in processing information about individuals and groups were observed, with more on-line judgments for individuals. As expected, illusory correlations between minority targets and infrequent behaviors (a memory-based product) emerged with comp instructions (which induced memory-based judgments for both target types) and in the memory-set condition for group targets only. These data provide insights into the differences in impression formation for groups and individuals and furnish direct evidence of the processes responsible for illusory correlations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigating the social-adjustive and value-expressive functions of attitudes: Implications for persuasion processes.

In Study 1, individuals for whom attitudes serve a primarily social-adjustive function (i.e., high-self-monitoring individuals) and individuals for whom attitudes serve a primarily value-expressive function (i.e., low-self-monitoring individuals) were identified. As expected, high-self-monitoring individuals experienced more attitude change after exposure to a message said to address a social-adjustive function, and low-self-monitoring individuals experienced more attitude change after listening to a message presumably directed at a value-expressive function. Moreover, subjects tended to generate proportionally more message-relevant thoughts in response to, and tended to recall better, functionally relevant messages. In addition, recall tended to be particularly consistent with postmessage attitudes when the message was functionally relevant. A second study suggested that the attitude change obtained in Study 1 occurred via peripheral route processes. Results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of adopting a functional approach and its implications for persuasion, information processing, and memory for attitudinally relevant information. Additionally, methods for studying attitudinal functions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of message repetition and position on cognitive response, recall, and persuasion.

Although the mere exposure effect has been researched widely, surprisingly little is known about the attitudinal and cognitive effects of message repetition. It was hypothesized that the sequence of topic-relevant thoughts generated in response to a (repeated) persuasive message would parallel attitude change. To test this prediction, 2 experiments were conducted. In Exp I, 133 undergraduates heard a communication either 0 (control), 1, 3, or 5 times in succession, rated their agreement with the advocated position, and listed the message arguments they could recall. In Exp II, 193 undergraduates heard a communication either 1, 3, or 5 times, rated their agreement, listed their thoughts, and listed the message arguments they could recall. In both experiments, agreement first increased, then decreased as exposure frequency increased (regardless of the position advocated), but agreement was unrelated to the recall of the message arguments. In Exp II, analyses of the listed thoughts revealed that counterargumentation decreased, then increased, whereas topic-irrelevant thinking increased as exposure frequency increased; as expected, only topic-relevant thoughts were related to agreement. Results are interpreted in terms of an attitude-modification model in which repetition and content of a persuasive advocacy affect the type and number of thoughts generated; these thoughts, in turn, affect the attitudinal reaction to the advocacy. (63 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does memory affect judgment? Self-generated versus recall memory measures.

Most evidence regarding the independence of memory and judgment comes from studies that used memory measures consisting of Ss' recall of raw input data (recall measures). Such evidence provides the primary support for on-line judgment formation. The results of 2 experiments suggest that self-generated memory measures capture the contents of memory at the time of judgments more effectively than recall measures and, accordingly, are more likely to provide evidence that memory and judgment are related. When directly compared, a self-generated measure provided evidence of a memory–judgment relationship and a recall measure did not. Thus, memory-based judgment formation may be more prevalent than the on-line processing literature suggests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-persuasion and self-presentation as mediators of anticipatory attitude change.

Three experiments with 197 undergraduates determined when anticipatory attitude change occurs via self-persuasion or self-presentation and identified the implications for attitude persistence of a shift by either process. In Exp I, Ss' thoughts and attitudes were assessed while they expected either a counterattitudinal or a proattitudinal message. Ss generated thoughts and reported attitudes consistent with the direction of the anticipated message, even though their responses were anonymous. In the final 2 experiments, the publicness of Ss' attitudes was varied to examine the impact of self-presentational concerns on thoughts and attitudes. In Exp II, Ss in the private condition spontaneously generated more thoughts relevant to the anticipated counterattitudinal message than did Ss in the public condition. In Exp III, some Ss were told that the anticipated counterattitudinal message was not forthcoming. When the message was canceled in the public condition, Ss failed to show an anticipatory shift in attitude; in the private condition, however, anticipatory attitude change was obtained. It is concluded that when self-presentation concerns are manifest, temporary changes in attitude occur in response to these concerns. In contrast, when pressures to self-present are low, anticipatory changes reflect genuine shifts in attitude resulting from an active consideration of the merits of the counterattitudinal position. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overt head movements and persuasion: A self-validation analysis.

The authors report 3 experiments that examine a new mechanism by which overt head movements can affect attitude change. In each experiment, participants were induced to either nod or to shake their heads while listening to a persuasive message. When the message arguments were strong, nodding produced more persuasion than shaking. When the arguments were weak, the reverse occurred. These effects were most pronounced when elaboration was high. These findings are consistent with the "self-validation" hypothesis that postulates that head movements either enhance (nodding) or undermine (shaking) confidence in one's thoughts about the message. In a 4th experiment, the authors extended this result to another overt behavior (writing with the dominant or nondominant hand) and a different attitude domain (self-esteem). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Target entitativity: Implications for information processing about individual and group targets.

It is hypothesized that perceptions of entitativity (i.e., seeing social targets as possessing unity and coherence) have important implications for how one organizes information about, and forms impressions of, individual and group targets. When perceivers expect entitativity, they should form an integrated impression of the target, resulting in on-line judgments. However, when perceivers expect little entitativity, they should not process target-relevant information in an integrative fashion, resulting in memory-based judgments. Although many factors affect perceptions of entitativity, the current study focused on expectations of similarity and behavioral consistency. It was predicted that in general, perceivers expect greater entitativity for individual than group targets. However, when explicitly provided with similar expectancies of entitativity, information processing would be similar for both individual and group targets. Two experiments supported these predictions, using recall, memory-judgment correlation, and illusory correlation measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagery elaboration and the recall of French article-noun pairs.

Examined the effect of an imagery-based study technique, called the "hook," on the acquisition of French article–noun pairs. 40 undergraduates with some background in French as a 2nd language studied a list of items under imagery elaboration or under rote rehearsal instructions. Under each type of instruction, half the Ss were asked to use the peg words learned prior to the experiment, whereas the remaining half were not asked to use them. When the English translation equivalents were presented as retrieval cues, recall was substantially better under imagery than under rote instructions. The use of mnemonic peg words had a slight detrimental effect on recall, regardless of the type of instructions received. It is concluded that rote repetition, as prescribed in language textbooks, is not as effective as imagery elaboration for learning French article–noun pairs. (French abstract) (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time for doing is not the time for change: Effects of general action and inaction goals on attitude retrieval and attitude change.

Implicit in many informal and formal principles of psychological change is the understudied assumption that change requires either an active approach or an inactive approach. This issue was systematically investigated by comparing the effects of general action goals and general inaction goals on attitude change. As prior attitudes facilitate preparation for an upcoming persuasive message, general action goals were hypothesized to facilitate conscious retrieval of prior attitudes and therefore hinder attitude change to a greater extent than general inaction goals. Experiment 1 demonstrated that action primes (e.g., “go,” “energy”) yielded faster attitude report than inaction primes (e.g., “rest,” “still”) among participants who were forewarned of an upcoming persuasive message. Experiment 2 showed that the faster attitude report identified in Experiment 1 was localized on attitudes toward a message topic participants were prepared to receive. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 showed that, compared with inaction primes, action primes produced less attitude change and less argument scrutiny in response to a counterattitudinal message on a previously forewarned topic. Experiment 6 confirmed that the effects of the primes on attitude change were due to differential attitude retrieval. That is, when attitude expression was induced immediately after the primes, action and inaction goals produced similar amounts of attitude change. In contrast, when no attitude expression was induced after the prime, action goals produced less attitude change than inaction goals. Finally, Experiment 7 validated the assumption that these goal effects can be reduced or reversed when the goals have already been satisfied by an intervening task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Positive mood and persuasion: Different roles for affect under high- and low-elaboration conditions.

Two experiments examined the processes by which positive mood influences attitude change under high and low message elaboration conditions. To examine elaboration, Exp 1 included individuals who differed in their need for cognition, and Exp 2 manipulated the relevance of the message. In each study, Ss were exposed to a persuasive communication following a positive or neutral mood induction. In both studies, positive mood produced more positive attitudes toward the advocacy, but positive mood influenced the positivity of Ss' thoughts only under high-elaboration conditions. Path analyses showed that positive mood had a direct effect on attitudes in the low-elaboration conditions but influenced attitudes indirectly by modifying the positivity of thoughts in the high-elaboration conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chunking of repeated events in memory.

The chunking explanation of the repetition effect proposed by D. R. Young and F. S. Bellezza (see record 1983-23761-001) suggests that optimal recall occurs when the second presentation of an item results in the retrieval and elaboration of the first-presentation code. If a new code is created, recall is less than optimal. In three experiments involving paired-associates learning, the chunking hypothesis correctly indicated that with a large spacing of item repetitions, constant-encoding conditions resulted in superior recall performance. But with a short spacing, variable encoding led to better recall. In addition, evidence for superadditivity was found in Experiment 3 in those experimental conditions in which code elaboration was most likely to take place. It is suggested that multiple-copy explanations of the repetition effect are untenable unless the repetition of an item is not recognized. If a repetition is recognized, the information from both presentations is organized into one code in memory, and recall performance is optimal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval selectivity in memory-based impression judgments.

Judgments about others are often based on memory for information about the persons being judged. Three studies with a total of 92 undergraduates are reported that used decision time to determine what information Ss selectively recall when they make memory-based person judgments. Each study employed a sequential judgment paradigm in which an S first made an impression judgment about a person on one dimension while stimulus information was continuously available. Immediately therafter, the S made a 2nd judgment about the same person on a different dimension without the stimulus information being available. It is concluded that Ss' memory-based judgments were based on memory for their 1st impression judgments combined with a selective memory search for negative stimulus information. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of attitude strength over the life cycle: surge and decline

This article explores the relation of age to manifestations and antecedents of attitude strength. Three studies demonstrate that susceptibility to attitude change is greater during early and late adulthood than during middle adulthood. Three additional studies demonstrate that attitude importance, certainty, and perceived quantity of attitude-relevant knowledge are greater in middle adulthood than during early or late adulthood. These antecedents may therefore explain life cycle shifts in susceptibility to change. Susceptibility to change, importance, certainty, and perceived knowledge differ from one another in terms of their correlations with education, gender, and race, challenging the notion that attitude strength is a unitary construct. Evidence that people incorrectly believe that susceptibility to change declines steadily over the life course reinforces the distinction between operative and meta-attitudinal measures of attitude strength.     

Source expertise, source attractiveness, and the processing of persuasive information: A functional approach.

Male undergraduates high and low in self-monitoring listened to either an expert or attractive male source deliver a counterattitudinal message supported by either strong or weak arguments. As expected, high self-monitoring individuals agreed with the expert source regardless of the quality of the arguments presented but agreed with the attractive source only when he delivered strong arguments. By contrast, low self-monitoring individuals agreed with the attractive source regardless of the quality of the arguments presented but agreed with the expert souce only when he delivered strong arguments. Cognitive response and recall data suggested that high-self monitoring individuals were systematically processing the attractive source's message and were heuristically processing the expert source's message, whereas low self-monitoring individuals were systematically processing the expert source's message and were heuristically processing the attractive source's message. We discuss the role of source variables in persuasion settings, the determinants of an information-processing strategy, and the functional underpinnings of attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive tuning set, source credibility, and the temporal persistence of attitude change.

Tested the prediction that a transmitter cognitive tuning set confers more persistence of attitude change than a receiver set. 550 undergraduates read an essay with its source defined as high or low credibility and were told to prepare to report on it (transmit) or listen to a similar essay (receive). Persistence of attitude change was measured at 2, 5, or 9 wks. Consonant findings were obtained only when the persuasive message came from a source of low credibility. When the source was of high credibility, findings were reversed and the receiver set conferred more persistence. Exp II (104 Ss) examined the interpretation that, relative to the transmitter set, the receiver set leads to a stronger association between the conclusion of the message and its source and that it is this differential associative strength that mediated the obtained interaction between cognitive tuning sets and source credibility in Exp I. Exp II confirmed that message–source links were stronger with a receiver set than with a transmitter set. Additional data indicated that the transmitter set enhanced Ss' focus on the message and may have highlighted the inconsistency between the cogent message and the low-credibility source. Combined findings suggest that 2 cognitive processes mediated the obtained persistence results, one process based on the strength of the association between the source and message and the other based on the transmitter set sometimes enhancing involvement with a message. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding knowledge effects on attitude-behavior consistency: The role of relevance, complexity, and amount of knowledge.

The role of properties of attitude-relevant knowledge in attitude- behavior consistency was explored in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, attitudes based on behaviorally relevant knowledge predicted behavior better than attitudes based on low-relevance knowledge, especially when people had time to deliberate. Relevance, complexity, and amount of knowledge were investigated in Experiment 2. It was found that complexity increased attitude- behavior consistency when knowledge was of low-behavioral relevance. Under high-behavioral relevance, attitudes predicted behavior well regardless of complexity. Amount of knowledge had no effect on attitude- behavior consistency. In Experiment 3, the findings of Experiment 2 were replicated, and the complexity effect was extended to behaviors of ambiguous relevance. Together, these experiments support an attitude inference perspective, which holds that under high deliberation conditions, people consider the behavioral relevance and dimensional complexity of knowledge underlying their attitudes before deciding to act on them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social identification effects in group polarization.

Tested a model of group polarization derived from social identity theory, proposing that if group members conform to group norms, attitude polarization could occur only if group members perceive those norms as more extreme than they "objectively" are. In Exp I, 60 undergraduates perceived attitude-relevant information attributed to speakers who were categorized as a group as representing a more extreme position of the issue than when the same information was attributed to noncategorized individuals. Attitude polarization occurred when Ss believed the information came from their in-group. As predicted, this polarization resulted from Ss' adoption of the "extremitized" in-group norm. In Exp II, categorization was manipulated by focusing 42 Ss on their group performance or on their individual performance. When Ss were focused on their group membership, group norms were perceived as more extreme, and attitude polarization due to conformity to these extremitized norms occurred. When Ss were focused on their individual performance, no extremitization occurred, and attitudes shifted to a more neutral position on the issue. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)