The Impact of the Antitobacco Norm on the Selected Mode of Cognitive Dissonance Reduction

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that when behavior violates an antismoking injunctive norm, dissonance is aroused, but the injunctive norm constrains how people reduce their discomfort. In Experiment 1, participants with positive or negative attitudes toward public smoking wrote an essay for or against a ban on public smoking. Whereas attitude change occurred for those whose counter‐attitudinal essay supported the antismoking norm, those whose counter‐attitudinal essay violated the antismoking norm did not change their attitudes to reduce dissonance. In Experiment 2, participants who wrote against the ban on public smoking eschewed attitude change in favor of reducing dissonance through trivialization and act rationalization. The discussion focuses on how maintaining social connections makes cognitions resistant to change when dissonance is aroused.     

Attitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude-perception and attitude-behavior relations: an investigation of the 1984 presidential election

It was hypothesized that the extent to which individuals' attitudes guide their subsequent perceptions of and behavior toward the attitude object is a function of the accessibility of those attitudes from memory. A field investigation concerning the 1984 presidential election was conducted as a test of these hypotheses. Attitudes toward each of the two candidates, Reagan and Mondale, and the accessibility of those attitudes, as indicated by the latency of response to the attitudinal inquiry, were measured for a large sample of townspeople months before the election. Judgments of the performance of the candidates during the televised debates served as the measure of subsequent perceptions, and voting served as the measure of subsequent behavior. As predicted, both the attitude-perception and the attitude-behavior relations were moderated by attitude accessibility. The implications of these findings for theoretical models of the processes by which attitudes guide behavior, along with their practical implications for survey research, are discussed.     

Attitude accessibility,attitude-behavior consistency,and the strength of the object-evaluation association

Two experiments were conducted in order to examine the accessibility of attitudes from memory as a function of the manner of attitude formation. The findings of the first experiment indicated that subjects could respond more quickly in a response-time task to inquiries about their attitudes when the attitudes were based upon direct behavioral experience with the attitude objects than when they were based upon nonbehavioral experience. It was suggested that, relative to indirect experience, behavioral experience may facilitate the attitude formation process and increase attitude accessibility once the attitude is formed. A second experiment found support for both of these notions. Two additional experiments indicated that repeated association of the attitude object and the attitudinal evaluation enhanced both attitude accessibility and attitude-behavior consistency. It was suggested that the strength of the object-evaluation association is a critical determinant of accessibility, which, in turn, acts as a central factor in the process by which attitudes affect later behavior. It was further suggested that the manner of attitude formation affects attitude-behavior consistency because direct experience produces a stronger object-evaluation association and, hence, a more accessible attitude than does indirect experience.     

Persuasion as Reinforcement: Strengthening the Pro-Environmental Attitude-Behavior Relationship through Ecotainment Programming

This study investigated whether the effects of viewing pro-environmental messages within a narrative context affected intention to perform ecofriendly behaviors through the accessibility of participants’ (N = 332) environmental attitudes. One week after an online pretest, participants viewed one of two television clips that either included or did not include pro-environmental messages. Participants then completed attitude accessibility latency measures and reported behavioral intent to perform several ecofriendly behaviors. Reinforcement of pro-environmental attitudes by the pro-environmental messages occurred through the accessibility of the attitudes, which, in turn, predicted intention to engage in the depicted ecofriendly behaviors. Consistent with a category activation hypothesis, accessible attitudes toward the specific behaviors depicted in the program predicted the accessibility of attitudes toward ecofriendly behaviors that were not depicted or explicitly discussed in the program, and these accessible attitudes predicted intention to engage in ecological behaviors not depicted in the program. These findings are a first demonstration that portrayals of specific behaviors in a narrative television program can increase behavioral intention for related behaviors not shown in the program and that these effects occur through the activation of existing, positive attitudes.     

Effects of caffeine on persuasion and attitude change: The role of secondary tasks in manipulating systematic message processing

Two experiments are reported that examine the effects of caffeine consumption on attitude change by using different secondary tasks to manipulate message processing. The first experiment employed an orientating task whilst the second experiment employed a distracter task. In both experiments participants consumed an orange‐juice drink that either contained caffeine (3.5 mg/kg body weight) or did not contain caffeine (placebo) prior to reading a counter‐attitudinal communication. The results across both experiments were similar. When message processing was reduced or under high distraction, there was no attitude change irrespective of caffeine consumption. However, when message processing was enhanced or under low distraction, there was greater attitude change in the caffeine vs. placebo conditions. Furthermore, attitudes formed after caffeine consumption resisted counter‐persuasion (Experiment 1) and led to indirect attitude change (Experiment 2). The extent that participants engaged in message‐congruent thinking mediated the amount of attitude change. These results provide evidence that moderate amounts of caffeine increase systematic processing of the arguments in the message resulting in greater agreement. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived consensus influences intergroup behavior and stereotype accessibility

Past research has demonstrated the powerful influence other people have on the thoughts and behaviors of individuals. However, the study of intergroup attitudes has focused primarily on the influence of direct exposure to out-group members as determinants of stereotypes and prejudice. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that learning that others share one's intergroup beliefs influences intergroup attitudes and behavior as well as stereotype representation. Experiment 1 demonstrated that learning that one's beliefs are shared or not shared with others influences attitudes, behavior, and the strength of the attitude-behavior relationship. Experiment 2 demonstrated a potential mechanism for such effects by showing that learning about whether others share one's stereotypes influences the accessibility of those stereotypes and related stereotypes.     

Predicting contraceptive behavior from attitudes: a comparison of within- versus across-subjects procedures

Within- versus across-subjects procedures for predicting behavior from attitudes were contrasted. Each procedure requires a comparison among attitudes in order to generate a prediction; the comparison is either among the same attitudes held by different people (across subjects) or among different attitudes held by the same person (within subject). It was hypothesized that the within-subject model provides a more adequate explanation of behavior from attitudinal constructs and, hence, more accurate prediction of behavior from attitudes than does the across-subjects model. To test this view, a sample of 349 married couples was administered a questionnaire containing measures of three attitudinal components--affect, cognition, and conation--toward each of four contraceptive methods--oral contraceptives, IUD, diaphragm, and condoms. Contraceptive behavior was assessed 1 year later. In support of the hypothesis, the within-subject predictions bore a significantly stronger relation to the behavioral criteria than did the across-subjects predictions. This effect was consistent for each of the three components of attitude, for the prediction of behavior and behavioral intention, for male and female respondents, and for a variety of contraceptive behaviors. In addition, both the within- and the across-subjects analyses demonstrated a clear rank ordering in the predictive validity of the three attitudinal components: Conation was a better predictor of behavior than was affect, which, in turn, was better than cognition.     

A psychological perspective interpretation of the attitude-behavior relationship

In two experiments subjects were shown seven items that described uses for photographs taken of them with an opposite-sex black. The uses formed a graded series ranging from a situation in which only other researchers would see the photos to one in which they would be employed in a nationwide campaign for integration. Subjects were either asked to sign releases so that the photographs could actually be taken and used in the ways specified (behavior) or to indicate their hypothetical agreement or disagreement with each release as part of a survey on attitudes (attitude). In both experiments, the attitude subjects agreed to more of the releases than did the behavior subjects. This difference has been termed an attitude-behavior discrepancy by some researchers. However, in both experiments, behavior subjects judged themselves as no less prejudiced than attitude subjects and scaled agreement with each photographic release as reflecting less prejudice than did attitude subjects. These data are consistent with the interpretation that subjects changed their psychological perspectives (Ostrom & Upshaw, 1968) in order to interpret their own behaviors as attitudinally consistent.     

Perceiver-induced constraint and attitude attribution in Japan and the US: A case for the cultural dependence of the correspondence bias

After observing someone’s behavior, individuals often infer a corresponding attitude in the person even when the behavior is socially constrained. Convincing evidence for this phenomenon (called the correspondence bias) has been obtained in the perceiver-induced constraint paradigm, where participants ask a target person to read a pre-written attitudinal statement, and after observing the target comply, estimate the target’s real attitude. This paradigm maximally highlights the causal role of the participants in producing the target’s behavior. In Experiment 1, Americans exhibited a reliable correspondence bias under these conditions, but Japanese did not show any such bias. In Experiment 2, both Japanese and Americans inferred strong essay-consistent attitudes in a standard no-choice condition, where the target allegedly argued for a position that had been assigned to her. Implications for the cultural dependence of social cognition are discussed.     

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.     

Attitudinal Balance and Cause‐Related Marketing: An Empirical Application of Balance Theory

We examine the effects of pre‐existing organizational attitudes on consumer response to cause‐related marketing (CRM) alliances, using a Balance Theory framework. Two experiments demonstrate that balanced attitudes (either both positive or both negative) resulted in perceptions of appropriateness, but did not necessarily lead to positive affect. The positive balance scenario led to a synergistic attitudinal boost when both pre‐existing attitudes were positive. Attitudinal contamination was evident when either pre‐existing attitude was negative. Fit operated within the balance scenario to enhance perceptions of the strength of the CRM alliance, leading to more positive responses.     

品牌态度强度与品牌态度可达性的关系性质

运用态度量表和反应时实验比较了品牌态度强度与品牌态度可达性的关系性质。研究发现,女性被试对保健品品牌要素的态度评价越肯定,态度通达和提取的时间就越快,两者之间形成有规律的函数关系;但在否定性态度条件下,没有出现类似的规律性;当要求被试把模糊性态度明确为肯定或否定态度时,67％的被试明确为否定态度,但所用时间显著慢于明确为肯定态度所用的时间     

不同性别比和童年经济状况对未婚男性性态度的影响

基于进化心理学的生命史理论,通过两个实验探讨性别比和童年经济状况同男性性态度间的关系。实验1和实验2分别采用图片和文字材料启动被试的性别比感知,结果发现感知性别比和童年经济状况对未婚男性的"随意性行为"态度表现出显著的交互效应：童年家庭经济状况差的未婚男性在感知到周围女性数量相对充裕的情境下,其性开放态度会较感知到周围男性数量充裕时明显上升;童年家庭富裕的男性的性开放态度在不同感知性别比下保持相对稳定。     

不同性别比和童年经济状况对未婚男性性态度的影响

基于进化心理学的生命史理论,通过两个实验探讨性别比和童年经济状况同男性性态度间的关系。实验1和实验2分别采用图片和文字材料启动被试的性别比感知,结果发现感知性别比和童年经济状况对未婚男性的"随意性行为"态度表现出显著的交互效应：童年家庭经济状况差的未婚男性在感知到周围女性数量相对充裕的情境下,其性开放态度会较感知到周围男性数量充裕时明显上升;童年家庭富裕的男性的性开放态度在不同感知性别比下保持相对稳定。     

Recalibrating positive and negative weighting tendencies in attitude generalization

Individual differences in the weighting of positive versus negative information when generalizing attitudes towards novel objects predict a variety of assessments that involve the integration of valence information (Pietri, Fazio, & Shook, 2013). The goal of the current research was to manipulate valence weighting in attitude generalization to demonstrate its causal impact on various judgments and behaviors. In four experiments, participants first played BeanFest—a game in which they approached/avoided novel stimuli (beans) varying in shape and speckles, in order to increase and not decrease their points (Fazio et al., 2004). Following the game, participants classified game beans, and novel ones that varied in resemblance to the game beans as either positive or negative. In the recalibration condition, participants were told whether each classification was or was not correct. Thus, they received feedback regarding the appropriate valence weighting of resemblance to a known positive versus a known negative. In Experiment 1, this recalibration influenced individuals' attitude generalizations regarding other (non-bean) novel objects. We then examined if recalibration would produce far-transferring effects by influencing interpretations of ambiguous situations (Experiment 2), risk assessments (Experiment 3), and finally risk-taking behavior (Experiment 4). Across the four experiments, the recalibration procedure led participants who were initially relatively cautious to be more positive when making these various judgments, whereas people who exhibited an initial risky bias became more negative as a function of recalibration.     

Exploring the Valence‐Framing Effect: Negative Framing Enhances Attitude Strength

In his now‐classic research on inoculation theory, McGuire (1964 ) demonstrated that exposing people to an initial weak counterattitudinal message could lead to enhanced resistance to a subsequent stronger counterattitudinal message. More recently, research on the valence‐framing effect ( Bizer & Petty, 2005 ) demonstrated an alternative way to make attitudes more resistant. Simply framing a person's attitude negatively (i.e., in terms of a rejected position such as anti‐Democrat) led to more resistance to an attack on that attitude than did framing the same attitude positively (i.e., in terms of a preferred position such as pro‐Republican). Using an election context, the current research tested whether valence framing influences attitude resistance specifically or attitude strength more generally, providing insight into the effect's mechanism and generalizability. In two experiments, attitude valence was manipulated by framing a position either negatively or positively. Experiment 1 showed that negatively framed attitudes were held with more certainty than were positively framed attitudes. In Experiment 2, conducted among a representative sample of residents of two U.S. states during political campaigns, negatively framed attitudes demonstrated higher levels of attitude certainty and attitude‐consistent behavioral intentions than did attitudes that were framed positively. Furthermore, the effect of valence framing on behavioral intentions was mediated by attitude certainty. Valence framing thus appears to be a relatively low‐effort way to impact multiple features associated with strong attitudes.     

On the malleability of automatic attitudes: combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals.

Two experiments examined whether exposure to pictures of admired and disliked exemplars can reduce automatic preference for White over Black Americans and younger over older people. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to either admired Black and disliked White individuals, disliked Black and admired White individuals, or nonracial exemplars. Immediately after exemplar exposure and 24 hr later, they completed an Implicit Association Test that assessed automatic racial attitudes and 2 explicit attitude measures. Results revealed that exposure to admired Black and disliked White exemplars significantly weakened automatic pro-White attitudes for 24 hr beyond the treatment but did not affect explicit racial attitudes. Experiment 2 provided a replication using automatic age-related attitudes. Together, these studies provide a strategy that attempts to change the social context and, through it, to reduce automatic prejudice and preference.     

Conditioned approach and withdrawal behavior in pigeons: Effects of a novel extraneous stimulus during acquisition and extinction

Three experiments examined the effects of complete removal of reinforcement and of the introduction of a novel stimulus on conditioned approach and withdrawal behavior exhibited by pigeons in an autoshaping paradigm. Experiment 1 indicated that complete omission of food from the experimental situation resulted in the gradual disappearance of both approach and withdrawal behavior in subjects that had received either explicitly paired or explicitly unpaired conditioning. Subsequent presentation of a novel visual stimulus reinstated both approach and withdrawal. Experiment 2 replicated these findings in a within-subjects, discriminative paradigm. In Experiment 3, presenting the novel visual stimulus during acquisition when approach and withdrawal behaviors were asymptotic did not produce significant disruption of performance. These data suggest that removal of reinforcement leads to the disappearance of withdrawal as well as approach performance, and that subsequent presentation of a novel stimulys reinstates whatever behavior was dominant prior to extinction—a finding that seems analogous to results of experiments concerning proactive interference.     

Differences in sexual attitudes and likeliness of sexual behaviors of black lower-socioeconomic father-present vs. father-absent female adolescents

This study compared sexual permissiveness attitudes and likely behaviors of father-absent vs. father-present black, lower-socioeconomic female adolescents. Father-absent subjects were not found to be more sexually permissive in reported likely behavior or attitude than father-present subjects. However, the father-absent group was found to have significantly greater inconsistency between behavioral and attitudinal scores in which the reported behavior was more permissive than the reported attitude. Finally, within the father-absent group, those subjects whose fathers became absent before they were five years old, were found to have a significantly higher need for social approval than subjects whose fathers became absent after they were five years old. The implications of these results are discussed.     

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.