Perceiving stability as a means to attitude certainty: The role of implicit theories of attitudes (original) (raw)
Related papers
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...
Attitudes, Persuasion, and Behavior
Tesser/Blackwell, 2001
Social psychologists conceptualize attitudes as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1; see chapter 20, this volume, for a review of different definitions). Although most definitions characterize attitudes as relatively enduring mental states, attitudes change as people interact with their social environment. In fact, the bulk of attitude research has addressed the conditions and processes of attitude change. Understanding the dynamics of attitude change is as useful for basic researchers who try to explain social information processing as it is vital for practitioners in business, health, law, marketing, or politics who are interested in effective strategies of influencing attitudes and behavior. The present chapter provides a selective review of mainstream theorizing in two key areas of attitude research. We first address attitude change through persuasion and subsequently review research into the attitude-behavior relationship. Issues pertaining to the conceptualization of attitudes and the emergence of context effects in attitude measurement are discussed by Schwarz and Bohner (chapter 20, this volume).
Annual Review of Psychology, 2006
Key Words attitude formation, attitude change, majority and minority influence, attitude strength, affect, attitude-behavior consistency ■ Abstract Study of attitudes and persuasion remains a defining characteristic of contemporary social psychology. This review outlines recent advances, with emphasis on the relevance of today's work for perennial issues. We reiterate the distinction between attitude formation and change, and show its relevance for persuasion. Single-and dual-process models are discussed, as are current views on dissonance theory. Majority and minority influence are scrutinized, with special emphasis on integrative theoretical innovations. Attitude strength is considered, and its relevance to ambivalence and resistance documented. Affect, mood, and emotion effects are reviewed, especially as they pertain to fear arousal and (un)certainty. Finally, we discuss attitude-behavior consistency, perhaps the reason for our interest in attitudes in the first place, with emphasis on self-interest and the theory of planned behavior. Our review reflects the dynamism and the reach of the area, and suggests a sure and sometimes rapid accumulation of knowledge and understanding.
Implicit ambivalence from attitude change: An exploration of the PAST model
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2006
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.
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.
People with an entity theory of attitudes (i.e., the belief that attitudes are relatively unchanging) are more certain of their attitudes than are people with an incremental theory (i.e., the belief that attitudes are relatively malleable), and people with greater attitude certainty are generally more willing to try to persuade others. Combined, these findings suggest that an entity theory should foster greater advocacy. Yet, people with entity theories may be less willing to advocate because they also perceive others' attitudes as unchanging. Across 5 studies, we show that both of these countervailing effects occur simultaneously and cancel each other out. However, by manipulating how advocacy is framed (as standing up for one's views or exchanging one's views with others), whom people focus on (themselves or others), or which implicit theory applies to oneself versus others, each implicit theory can either increase or decrease willingness to advocate. People frequently advocate for their opinions. They may try to persuade others during a conversation, share their views in a Facebook post, or stand up for their side of a contested issue in political protest. But what motivates people to advocate? Advo-cacy is an interpersonal exchange, suggesting that people may consider both characteristics of themselves and of others when deciding whether to advocate. In particular, people may assess aspects of their own and others' attitudes before deciding whether to express their views. In this paper, we explore people's beliefs about their own and others' attitude stability (i.e., implicit theories of attitudes) and show that the same underlying belief about the world can have opposing effects on one's likelihood of advocating. We show that holding theories of stability (i.e., entity theories) about attitudes can both increase and decrease advocacy, but that each effect occurs as the result of different mechanisms and is found under different circumstances. More specifically, we show that entity theories can simultaneously increase advocacy by increasing attitude certainty and decrease advocacy by making one view others as not persuadable. These processes are offsetting, but either one can dominate depending on how advocacy is framed and whether a given implicit theory is applied to oneself or to others.
Resistance to persuasion and attitude certainty: The moderating role of elaboration
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2004
Recent research (Tormala & Petty, 2002) has demonstrated that when people resist persuasive attacks, they can under specifiable conditions become more certain of their initial attitudes. The present research explores the role of elaboration in determining when this effect will occur. Using both self-reported differences in situational elaboration (Study 1) and chronic individual differences in the need for cognition (Study 2), it is demonstrated that resisting persuasion increases attitude certainty primarily when elaboration is high. When elaboration is low, resisting persuasion does not appear to impact attitude certainty. These findings shed light on the role of metacognitive factors in resistance to persuasion, pinpointing the conditions under which these factors come into play.
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.