Documenting individual differences in the propensity to hold attitudes with certainty (original) (raw)
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Unpacking attitude certainty: Attitude clarity and attitude correctness
2007
Attitude certainty has been the subject of considerable attention in the attitudes and persuasion literature. The present research identifies 2 aspects of attitude certainty and provides evidence for the distinctness of the constructs. Specifically, it is proposed that attitude certainty can be conceptualized, and empirically separated, in terms of attitude clarity (the subjective sense that one knows what one’s attitude is) and attitude correctness (the subjective sense that one’s attitude is correct or valid). Experiment 1 uses factor analysis and correlational data to provide evidence for viewing attitude clarity and attitude correctness as separate constructs. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate that attitude clarity and attitude correctness can have distinct antecedents (repeated expression and consensus feedback, respectively). Experiment 4 reveals that these constructs each play an independent role in persuasion and resistance situations. As clarity and correctness increase, atti...
Self-certainty: Parallels to Attitude Certainty
2007
The purpose of this article is to apply theory and research on attitude certainty to the study of the self. Our main goal is to show that research on attitudes, and in particular attitude certainty, can provide useful insights into self-related phenomena. By considering research on attitudes, we may be able to re-interpret previous self-related findings, make new predictions regarding
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1999
Two studies examined the impact of subjective experiences on reports of attitude certainty, intensity, and importance. In Study 1, participants with moderate or extreme attitudes toward doctor-assisted suicide generated three (easy) or seven (hard) arguments that either supported or countered their opinion toward the issue prior to indicating the strength of their attitude. Participants with moderate attitudes rated their opinions as more intense, personally important, and held with greater certainty when they had generated either a small number of supporting arguments or a large number of opposing arguments. Ratings provided by individuals with extreme attitudes were unaffected by the argument generation task. In Study 2, the impact of ease of recall on strength-related judgments was eliminated when it was rendered nondiagnostic by a misattribution manipulation. Implications of these findings for attitude strength and other judgmental phenomena are discussed.
On the predictive validity of attitudes: The roles of direct experience and confidence1
Journal of Personality, 1978
Previous research has demonstrated that behavior is more accurately predicted from attitudes formed via direct, behavioral interaction with the attitude object than from attitudes developed via indirect, nonbehavioral experience. The present research examined the hypothesis that the confidence with which an attitude is held may be a mediating variable in the observed relationship between the manner of attitude formation and attitude-behavior consistency. In the first experiment, it was demonstrated that subjects who formed their attitudes through direct experience held those attitudes more confidently and behaved more consistently with those attitudes than did subjects who formed their attitudes through indirect experience. In the second experiment, it was found that, regardless of the manner of attitude formation, subjects who were led to believe that they held their attitudes confidently displayed greater attitude-behavior consistency than did subjects led to believe that they held their attitudes with little confidence. Taken together, the results suggest that it may be fruitful to view confidence both as a variable which mediates the effect of the manner of attitude formation on attitudebehavior consistency and as one which, independent of how an attitude is formed, acts as a determinant of attitude-behavior consistency.
Perceiving stability as a means to attitude certainty: The role of implicit theories of attitudes
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2010
This research introduces the concept of implicit theories of attitude stability. Across three studies, individuals are shown to vary both naturally and situationally in their lay theories about the stability of attitudes. Furthermore, these general theories are shown to impact people's certainty in their specific attitudes by shaping their perceptions of the stability of the attitude under consideration. By affecting attitude certainty, implicit theories of attitude stability also influence the extent to which people rely on their attitude when committing to future attitude-relevant behavior. Moreover, following exposure to a persuasive attack, implicit theories are shown to interact with situational perceptions of attitude stability to determine attitude certainty. Collectively, these findings suggest that implicit theories of attitude stability have an important influence on people's attitude certainty, subsequent behavioral intentions, and resistance to persuasive messages. Future directions concerning the potential impact of these theories for other attitudinal phenomena are discussed.
Consumer conviction and commitment: An appraisal-based framework for attitude certainty
Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2014
This paper explores consumers' commitment to and conviction about their beliefs in the form of attitude certainty. Based on a review of past research, we present a new framework for understanding attitude certainty and how consumers' attitude certainty is shaped by their resisting or yielding to persuasive messages, or even by their reflections on the evidence supporting their attitudes. We propose that attitude certainty is formed and changed largely through an attribution-based reasoning process linked to a finite set of distinct appraisals. Our framework is used to both organize past research and offer guidance for future research endeavors. In addition, we distinguish our framework of appraisal-based attitude certainty from past models in attitudes and persuasion research that have referenced or taken note of the attitude certainty construct. Implications and future directions for the study of consumer behavior are discussed.
Ambivalence and certainty can interact to predict attitude stability over time
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2016
The ability of attitudinal ambivalence and certainty to individually predict an attitude's stability over time has received mixed support. We proposed that ambivalence and certainty moderate one another's relationship with temporal attitude stability. That is, we hypothesized an interaction between these two attitude strength variables in predicting stability over time. In three studies, we used two-stage designs in which attitudes were assessed twice with an interval ranging from one to twelve months between measurements. Across these longitudinal studies examining different attitude objects, greater certainty was associated with greater stability across different time points as ambivalence decreased, and greater ambivalence was associated with greater instability as attitude certainty increased. Notably, the results held across health-related, social, and real-world political topics.
The influence of attitudes on beliefs: Formation and change
2005
This chapter discusses attitudes' influence on beliefs, drawing from limited research and theorizing because most researchers have focused on the reciprocal causal direction. Theories that examine attitudes as anchors against which subsequent judgments are adjusted, theories of cognitive consistency, theories regarding the organization of thought systems, and information processing principles offer primary explanations for attitude-belief effects. Most of the research on the influence of attitudes on beliefs has demonstrated that attitudes have a congruent effect on the retrieval, formation, and change of beliefs, and that variables that increase salience of one's attitude through thought, elaborative processing, or personal importance of the attitude object will strengthen this congruence. In contrast, some recent research offers a caveat to these effects, demonstrating that when individuals have limited access to the original sources of information upon which their attitudes were formed, a disconnect can occur between components of one's attitude-belief systems.