Attitude Formation and Change

Attitudes and their Importance

Often described as the central construct in social psychology, an attitude is a disposition, favorable or unfavorable, toward some object (such as a person, group, or thing) of consideration. Attitudes are important because they guide behavior, although psychologists have shown the attitude-behavior relation to be complex and not necessarily predictable. Social scientists and pollsters typically measure attitudes with direct questions about one's favor toward the object (such as product, politician, or policy) of interest. Recent methodological developments have enabled researchers to measure attitudes more indirectly, sometimes using unobtrusive or even subliminal stimuli so that assessments are made without the attitude holder's awareness or control. While researchers now know attitudes to be mentally activated spontaneously on the mere perception of, or thought about, the attitude object, some still question whether an attitude exists before the question is asked.

Formation and Change

An important consideration with regard to attitudes is how they form and change, and considerable research has been dedicated to this issue. In a sense, many psychologists conceptualize attitude formation as a form of attitude change—from no attitude to some attitude—and so research on these subjects has typically gone hand in hand. Common synonymous terms for attitude change include persuasion and influence, specifically when another person or group is acting as an agent of change.

Most simply, attitudes form and change through reasoning and argumentation. This is perhaps how most people assume attitude change occurs, and it is consistent with theories of rationality that are popular in many of the social sciences. Psychological theory describes such attitude formation and change processes as central or systematic, and there is evidence that, under specific circumstances, such as when there is ample time to make a decision, the decision maker is highly motivated to be correct, sufficient information is available, and so on, people do make careful, deliberate considerations when forming and changing attitudes.

In contrast, considerable research indicates that there are many peripheral or heuristic routes to persuasion. For example, in addition to the quality of the information itself, people are influenced by the source, the style, the order, and other factors related to the message they receive. To be sure, source (the person delivering the persuasive appeal) can be a valid basis of judgment (for example, with regard to expertise and credibility), but it has been shown that irrelevant source features, such as physical attractiveness and similarity, are also influential. In addition to the central-systematic versus peripheral-heuristic [Page 101]dichotomy, psychologists have distinguished between informational and normative (or social) influence on attitude change. The former has to do with the specific, instrumental content of a persuasive appeal, and the latter reflects the drive to conform to group norms—to fit in.

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