Belief relevance and attitude–behavior consistency: The moderating role of personal experience.

Examined whether belief relevance enhances the degree of attitude–behavior consistency when the behavioral implications of a global attitude contradict the behavioral implications of prior personal experience in a pertinent action domain. It was generally expected that belief relevance would promote attitude–behavior consistency only for those individuals with little prior personal experience. 68 undergraduates participated in the study. As predicted, enhancing cognitive accessibility substantially increased the consistency between global environmental attitudes and petition-signing behavior but only for those Ss who had minimal prior personal experience with the consequences of an on-campus parking shortage. For those Ss with relatively extensive personal experience, cogitive accessibility did not increase attitude–behavior consistency. The theoretical importance of considering the nature and extent of respondents' prior personal experiences in attitude–behavior research is discussed. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Desire or reason: Predicting health behaviors from affective and cognitive attitudes.

Objective: The authors explore the role of affective attitudes in predicting 14 health-promoting or health-risk behaviors. Design: Participants (n = 390) completed questionnaire measures of affective and cognitive attitude and, 1 month later, reported their intentions and behavior. Main outcome measures: The outcome measures in this study were the Time 2 self-report measures of intention and behavior. Results: A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that affective attitude was a significantly more powerful predictor of behavior than cognitive attitude for 9 behaviors. Also, affective attitude had a direct effect on behavior that was not fully mediated by intention for 9 behaviors. In a final series of regressions, higher divergence between affective and cognitive attitudes was shown to strengthen the relationship between affective attitudes and behavior for illegal drug use, binge drinking, and smoking. Conclusions: The findings underscore the importance of affect in the performance of health-related behaviors and suggest that interventions could usefully target the affective consequences of engaging in these behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of affective and cognitive focus on the attitude–behavior relation.

Previous research has produced contradictory findings regarding the effects of thought on the attitude–behavior relation. In an attempt to integrate these findings, the present authors proposed that thought may make either the affective or cognitive component of the attitude more salient and, thus, more important in the formation of the general evaluation and that behaviors may either be cognitively or affectively driven. It was hypothesized that a match between the attitude component emphasized by thought and the attitude component that drives behavior would increase the attitude–behavior relation, and alternatively, that a mismatch between the attitude components would decrease the relation. To test this hypothesis, 68 undergraduates focused either on the affective or cognitive component of their attitude before evaluating puzzles. The context of puzzle-playing behavior was varied to make the behavior either instrumental (cognitively driven) or consummatory (affectively driven), and Ss were given the opportunity to play with the puzzles. Correlations between the evaluations of the puzzles and the amount of time spent playing with the puzzles supported the hypothesis: Thought emphasizing the affective component produced evaluations that predicted consummatory behavior (affectively driven behaviors) but not instrumental behavior (cognitively driven). Alternatively, thought emphasizing the cognitive component produced evaluations that predicted instrumental behavior (cognitively driven) but not consummatory behavior. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Approach and avoidance of social information.

Examined how an approach or avoidance tendency to information influences the perception of related social behaviors. The sexual attitudes of 50 male and 54 female undergraduates were assessed prior to viewing either a birth control, conservative social values, or educational issues lecture. Ss indicated the number of meaningful actions in the sequence by pressing a thumb switch. It was hypothesized that more units would be indicated when the topic was consistent with the S's sexual attitudes, due to an attempt to gain more informational content. Ss with positive sexual attitudes (erotophiles) indicated more units in the birth control condition, whereas Ss with negative sexual attitudes (erotophobes) indicated more units in the social values condition. Results suggest that there are chronic differences in the segmentation patterns of individuals, reflecting affective orientations toward social information. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of public and private self-consciousness on the public expression of personal beliefs.

Examined the joint effects of private and public self-consciousness (SC) on attitudinal consistency. 113 male undergraduates (categorized as high and low private and high and low public SC) reported their own attitudes toward punishment. Later, each S was asked to write an essay in which he restated his attitude. Immediately prior to writing the essay, S learned that he would also be discussing his opinion with either a partner who held an attitude opposite to his own or a partner whose attitude was unknown. As predicted, the attitudes expressed in the essays of high public SC Ss were more moderate than those expressed by low public SC Ss. One effect of this moderation strategy was to lower the correlation between privately held and publicly expressed beliefs among Ss high in public SC. In contrast, attitudinal consistency was substantial among Ss who were low in public and high in private SC. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissonance processes as self-affirmation.

Tested the hypothesis that an experience that simply affirms a valued aspect of the self can eliminate dissonance and its accompanying cognitive changes. Three experiments were conducted using the conventional forced-compliance procedure. In Study 1, some of the 76 college student Ss were allowed to affirm an important, self-relevant value (by completing a self-relevant value scale) immediately after having written unrelated dissonant essays and prior to recording their attitudes on the postmeasure. Other Ss underwent an identical procedure but were selected so that the value affirmed by the scale was not part of their self-concept. The value scale eliminated dissonance-reducing attitude change among Ss for whom it was self-relevant but not among Ss for whom it was not self-relevant. This occurred even though the value scale could not resolve or reduce the objective importance of the dissonance-provoking inconsistency. Study 2, conducted with 24 Ss with a strong economic and political value orientation, showed that the self-affirmation effect was strong enough to prevent the reinstatement of dissonance. Study 3, testing generalizability with 24 Ss, replicated the effect by using a different attitude issue, a different value for affirmation, and a different measure of dissonance reduction. Results imply that a need for psychological consistency is not part of dissonance motivation and that salient, self-affirming cognitions may help objectify reactions to self-threatening information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of attitude on the recall of personal histories.

Two studies involving 135 university students examined the relation between attitudes and the recall of past behaviors. Both experiments utilized the same paradigm: First, Ss' attitudes on an issue were manipulated; then Ss were asked to recall past behaviors relevant to the newly formed attitude. The results indicate that attitudes can exert a directive influence on recall of personal histories. It is suggested that much like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the process of behavioral review may increase the control that attitude exerts over future behavior, producing an increase in attitude–behavior consistency. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude accessibility following a self-perception process.

Two experiments with 170 undergraduates investigated the accessibility of attitudes from memory following self-inference from behavior. It is noted that self-perception processes have been postulated to occur only to the extent that initial attitudes are weak. Exp I examined the consequence for attitude accessibility of reviewing and considering previously performed religious behaviors that were recent and primarily unmanded vs distant in time and manded in nature. Exp II involved the performance of a new behavior that was either required or freely chosen. In each case, control Ss either did not review prior behaviors or did not perform a new behavior. Results show that in both experiments, attitude accessibility, as measured by the latency of response to attitudinal inquiries, was enhanced by the consideration or performance of unmanded behavior, but not by manded behavior. The relevance of this finding to issues regarding attitude–behavior consistency and attitudinal persistence is discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Amount of information about the attitude object and attitude–behavior consistency.

The synthesis of 2 separate lines of inquiry—research on information integration and longitudinal studies of attitudes—prompted the hypothesis that the degree of consistency between attitudes and behavior will increase as a function of the amount of information available about the attitude object. This hypothesis was tested in 3 longitudinal studies, ranging in length from 4 days to 4 mo, that investigated the following behaviors: voting for candidates for political office, voting for 2 social-policy election initiatives, and having an influenza vaccination. Ss were 62 undergraduates (Study 1), 270 undergraduates (Study 2), and 299 27–92 yr old veterans (Study 3). In support of the hypothesis, amount of information moderated the consistency between attitudes and behavior in each study, and the significance of this relation remained even after controlling for the effects of other potential moderators, including prior direct behavioral experience with the attitude object and attitude certainty. Consistent with previous research, direct behavioral experience was also a determinant of attitude–behavior consistency, and this relation was independent of the effect of amount of information for the behavior of having an influenza vaccination. Discussion focuses on the interrelation among moderators of attitude–behavior consistency and on the theoretical implications of the findings. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective-cognitive consistency and thought-induced attitude polarization.

70 undergraduates whose preexperimental attitudes toward either capital punishment or censorship were identified as either high or low in affective-cognitive consistency wrote 2 essays, one on the topic for which consistency had been assessed (relevant essay) and the other on the unassessed topic (distractor essay). Findings indicate that in accord with the hypothesis that thought-induced attitude polarization requires the presence of a well-developed knowledge structure, high-consistency Ss evidenced greater polarization than low-consistency Ss only on the relevant topic after writing the relevant essay. Content analyses of Ss' relevant essays supported A. Tesser's (1978) ideas regarding mediation: High (vs low) consistency Ss expressed a greater proportion of cognitions that were evaluatively consistent with their prior affect toward the attitude object and a smaller proportion of evaluatively inconsistent and neutral cognitions. High-consistency Ss evidenced a greater tendency to assimilate discrepant information by generating refutational thoughts that discredited or minimized the importance of inconsistent information than did low-consistency Ss. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes, polarization, and diagnosticity: Exploring the effect of affect.

Examines the various judgmental effects of attitude intensity or commitment. 28 feminist and 26 nonfeminist undergraduates estimated the prevalence of both pro- and antifeminist attitudes in various segments of the population. They then estimated the prevalence of various personality traits and demographic characteristics among others with either pro- or antifeminist attitudes. In accord with a "false consensus" hypothesis, both S groups perceived profeminist attitudes to be more common among all population groups. In addition, however, committed Ss viewed the population as significantly more polarized on the women's rights issue. Relative to the remaining Ss, committed feminists overestimated the prevalence of both pro- and antifeminist attitudes. Although both S groups found information concerning others' position on women's rights to be highly diagnostic of personality traits and attitudes, committed feminists saw this information as significantly more diagnostic for both pro and anti others. Implications for both attribution and attitude theories are discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reciprocal relation between attitudes and behavior recall: Committing people to newly formed attitudes.

Reports 3 studies that used a total of 195 male and female undergraduates. Exp I showed that shifts in attitude were accompanied by shifts in the recall of the more qualitative rather than quantitative aspects of past behaviors. Exps II and III assessed the effects of recall on Ss' commitment to newly formed attitudes. On the premise that behavior recall is biased so as to be consistent with salient attitudes, it was hypothesized that recall would serve to increase Ss' commitment to their attitudes. In Exp II it was assumed that degree of commitment to an attitude would be reflected in the persistence of the attitude, behavioral intention, and actual behavior. As anticipated, Ss' intentions were more consistent with their attitudes when they had been prompted to recall attitudinally relevant behaviors. However, recall did not affect attitude persistence or actual behavior. In Exp III, commitment was measured by resistance to an attack on an attitude. Ss were more likely to maintain an attitude in the face of an attack if they had been induced to recall attitudinally relevant behaviors. The data support the hypothesis that attitudes can affect recall, which in turn affects commitment to the attitudes. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a process model of the attitude–behavior relation: Accessing one's attitude upon mere observation of the attitude object.

A central question with regard to the process by which attitudes "guide" behavior concerns the likelihood that individuals will spontaneously access their attitudes from memory on mere observation of the attitude object. This question was examined via a "priming" paradigm. In Exp I with 60 undergraduates, it was demonstrated that priming Ss with positive or negative adjectives affected their interpretation of ambiguous information presented in a 2nd, ostensibly unrelated, study. In Exp II, 112 Ss were primed with either a positively or negatively valued attitude object. This, too, affected subsequent interpretations of ambiguous information, implying that Ss had accessed their evaluations on observation of the attitude object. However, such effects were observed only when Ss' attitudes involved a relatively strong object–evaluation association. Attitude formation through direct behavioral experience with the attitude objects resulted in accessing the attitude on mere observation of the object. Attitude formation through indirect, nonbehavioral experience did not, unless the object–evaluation association was strengthened by having Ss repeatedly express their attitudes. On the basis of the findings, a model of the process by which attitudes guide behavior is proposed. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude prototypes as determinants of attitude–behavior consistency.

Hypothesized that individuals determine their attitudes toward a social group by assessing their reactions to an imagined group representative who embodies the defining or central group characteristics—the prototypical group member. When they encounter a specific group member whose characteristics match well those of the "attitude prototype," individuals display attitude–behavior consistency; when the match is poor, they display attitude–behavior inconsistency. This proposition was tested in 2 experiments with 56 undergraduates: Ss completed questionnaires assessing their attitudes toward various groups, and later their behavior toward prototypical and unprototypical individuals of those groups was evaluated. In each experiment, the attitude–behavior relationship was greater in relation to prototypical than to unprototypical group members. Knowledge of an unprototypical group member had little or no effect on attitude prototypes. Rather, the unprototypical group member was dismissed as atypical, leaving the prototype intact to influence future social behavior. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Illusory correlation in the perception of group attitudes": Corrections to Spears et al.

Reports an error in "Illusory correlation in the perception of group attitudes" by Russell Spears, Joop van der Pligt and J. Richard Eiser (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985[Apr], Vol 48[4], 863-875). In the article, several important corrections and additions were not made in the course of the production process. The corrected entries are included in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1985-20035-001.) 126 undergraduates with pro- or anti-attitudes toward nuclear power and 15 local members of a campaign for nuclear disarmament viewed opinion statements supposedly made by residents of 2 towns. One town was larger and statements from it occurred frequently, the other was small and statements from it were infrequent. Statements expressed either pro- or anti-attitudes to the building of a nuclear power station, in which one position was in a majority over the other. Despite the fact that the proportion of pro- and anti-statements was the same for both towns, it was predicted that the most statistically infrequent category, minority position/small town, would appear most distinctive and receive greatest encoding, leading Ss to overrepresent this category. It was also hypothesized that attitude-congruent positions would appear more salient than others because of their self-relevance, resulting in enhanced illusory correlation for minority-congruent attitude holders (distinctiveness plus salience). Futhermore, it was predicted that salience and therefore illusory correlation would increase as a function of attitude extremity for these Ss. All 3 predictions were supported, replicating the findings of D. L. Hamilton and R. K. Gifford (1976) that distinctiveness, operationalized as statistical infrequency, mediated an illusory correlation effect. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher effects on cognitive and affective pupil outcomes in elementary school mathematics.

Some writers contend that there is a degree of incompatibility in maximizing both desired cognitive and affective outcomes in pupils. In direct conflict is the contention expressed in literature relating to elementary school mathematics that the promotion of desired cognitive outcomes (or achievement) in pupils is dependent on the prior promotion of desired affective outcomes, such as favorable attitudes toward the subject, and furthermore, that teachers not possessing the desired cognitive and affective attributes may be unable to inspire them in their pupils. The validity of these contentions was assessed by administering mathematics attitude and achievement tests to final-year student teachers and to the 850 pupils (4th–6th grade) of 48 of these teachers during the following year. Statistical analyses were used to investigate teacher–pupil relationships. Findings indicate that high achievement and high attitudes in teachers were each signficantly related to high achievement in pupils but were also related to the least favorable pupil attitudes toward the subject. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-focus, felt responsibility, and helping behavior.

Two experiments, each with 55 female undergraduates, investigated whether juxtaposing self-focus and salient distressed others would (a) increase self-attribution of responsibility for those needy others and (b) increase willingness to help those others. In Exp I, Ss were exposed to their images on a TV screen 4 min before, immediately before, immediately after, or 4 min after seeing a videotape of victims of a venereal disease epidemic. As predicted, Ss who saw their images immediately before or after felt more responsibility for and were more willing to help the victims than were Ss in other conditions. In Exp II, Ss filled out a biographical questionnaire either 4 min before or immediately before seeing a videotape on poverty-stricken Latin Americans. Results confirm predictions. Ss who filled out the questionnaire immediately before the videotape felt more responsibility toward the distressed group than Ss who completed the questionnaire 4 min prior to the tape. Additional evidence indicates that this effect is probably not mediated by the sole operation of the self-evaluative mechanism posited by S. Duval and R. Wicklund (1972) or by change in attitudes regarding the distress of and/or necessity of helping distressed others. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of racial identity attitudes to self-actualization and affective states of Black students.

The relation between racial identity attitudes derived from W. E. Cross's (1971) model of psychological nigrescence, or Black self-actualization, and various affective states hypothesized to be relevant to the racial identification process, were investigated through multiple regression analysis. Cross proposed a model of how a person converts from Negro to Black, a process consisting of 5 distinct psychological stages characterized by different racial identity attitudes. Ss were 166 Black university students, who completed the Personal Orientation Inventory, a racial attitude scale, the SCL-90, and a personal-data information sheet. Both pro-White–anti-Black (preencounter) and pro-Black–anti-White (immersion) attitudes were associated with greater personal distress, as indicated by negative relations between these attitudes and mentally healthy self-actualizing tendencies and by positive relations to feelings of inferiority, anxiety, and hostility. Awakening Black identity (encounter attitudes) was positively related to self-actualization tendencies and negatively related to feelings of inferiority and anxiety. The possibility that cognitive and affective components of racial identity attitudes may evolve via different models is explored. Recommendations for delivery of psychological services to Black populations are discussed. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reactance as a function of actual versus projected autonomy.

Tested the impression management interpretation of psychological reactance. Contrary to the traditional effectance motivation interpretation, the impression management interpretation asserts that people are less concerned with the actual loss of a specific behavioral freedom than they are with maintaining the outward appearance of being free. 122 undergraduates read a communication that threatened their freedom to hold a particular attitude. Prior to the threat, some Ss were able either publicly or privately to exercise their freedom. Other Ss were not given the opportunity to exercise their freedom prior to its being threatened. Ss expressed their postcommunication attitude in a public or private manner. Consistent with the impression management hypothesis, attitude change did not occur when postcommunication attitudes were private. Further, public postcommunication attitudes were primarily used to convey the impression that the participant was autonomous; reactancelike attitude change occurred only when participants had not publicly exercised their freedom before it was threatened. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Presence versus absence of others: The effect on verbally expressed attitudes toward the disabled.

Tested the hypothesis that individuals express more favorable attitudes toward the disabled when in the presence of others than when alone. 36 students in a graduate rehabilitation course completed a 7-point rating scale pretest concerning 5 rehabilitation concepts, and adjective pairs were developed following the semantic differential model of C. E. Osgood et al (1957). Ss then viewed a film about meeting a blind person, following which they heard a presentation by and interacted with a blind model. Ss were randomly assigned to either individual or group conditions. Individual Ss again completed the 7-point rating scale in isolation. Ss in the groups discussed the film and the presentation together for 15 min before completing the posttest. All Ss were retested at 30-day follow-up. Results fail to reveal differences between conditions; however, Ss in both conditions demonstrated a significant shift in their attitudes toward blind persons. It is suggested that while the presence or absence of others did not contribute to an attitude change, the specificity of the attitude change strategy may bring about attitude change. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)