| Abstract: | A mailed appeal was received by 286 Israeli undergraduates who had completed a questionnaire either 3 mo, 6 mo, both 3 and 6 mo earlier, or not at all. Embedded in the questionnaire were attitude items on altruistic acts (including tutoring blind children) and on various controversial issues. The attitude–behavior correlation was higher over the shorter time interval (.47 vs .13), and data from the group whose attitudes were measured twice indicated this was due to real change in individuals' attitudes. A specific attitude and its corresponding behavior correlated more strongly among those whose general set of altruistic attitudes showed high rather than low temporal stability (.47 vs –.03), but stability of the specific attitude did not moderate this correlation. Characteristics of attitudes that might influence their stability are discussed, and it is shown that attitude stability is not a general trait. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
