Social psychologists have long recognized the possibility that attitudes might differ from one another in terms of their strength, but only recently had the profound implications of this view been explored. Yet because investigators in the area were pursuing interesting but independent programs of research exploring different aspects of strength, there was little articulation of assumptions underlying the work, and little effort to establish a common research agenda. The goals of this book are to highlight these assumptions, to review the discoveries this work has produced, and to suggest directions for future work in the area. The chapter authors include individuals who have made significant contributions to the published literature and represent a diversity of perspectives on the topic. In addition to providing an overview of the broad area of attitude strength, particular chapters deal in depth with specific features of attitudes related to strength and integrate the diverse bodies of relevant theory and empirical evidence. The book will be of interest to graduate students initiating work on attitudes as well as to longstanding scholars in the field. Because of the many potential directions for application of work on attitude strength to amelioration of social problems, the book will be valuable to scholars in various applied disciplines such as political science, marketing, sociology, public opinion, and others studying attitudinal phenomena.

Social psychology is a flourishing discipline. It explores the most essential questions of the human psyche (e.g., Why do people help or harm others? How do influence professionals get us to do what they want, and how can we inoculate ourselves against their sometimes-insidious persuasion tactics? Why do social relationships exert such powerful effects on people's physical health?), and it does so with clever, ingenuitive research methods. This edited volume is a textbook for advanced social psychology courses. Its primary target audience is first-year graduate students (MA or PhD) in social psychlogy, although it is also appropriate for upper-level undergraduate courses in social psychology and for doctoral students in disciplines connecting to social psychology (e.g., marketing, organizational behavior). The authors of the chapters are world-renowned leaders on their topic, and they have written these chapters to be engaging and accessible to students who are just learning the discipline. After reading this book, you will be able to understand almost any journal article or conference presentation in any field of social psychology. You will be able to converse competently with most social psychologists in their primary research domain, a use skill that is relevant not only in daily life but also when interviewing for a faculty position. And, most importantly, you will be equipped with the background knowledge to forge ahead more confidently with your own research.

The study of likes and dislikes - what social psychologists refer to as "attitudes" - has been a central focus of the field for decades. What are attitudes? How can we study and measure them scientifically? How are they formed and changed? Of what functional value, if any, are they? How do they come to influence our attention, perception, judgments, and behavior? These are among the questions that have spurred social psychological research on attitudes, and they are among the issues addressed in this volume. The articles reprinted in this collection represent noteworthy developments in the field's understanding of attitudes. Together, the readings provide a representative and broad coverage of the literature, illustrating well what the field has come to learn about the structure, function, and consequences of attitudes.

The reasons why people do not always act in accord with their attitudes has been the focus of much social psychological research, as have the factors that account for why people change their attitudes and are persuaded by such influences as the media. There is strong support for the view that attitude-behavior consistency and persuasion cannot be well understood without reference to the wider social context in which we live. Although attitudes are held by individuals, they are social products to the extent that they are influenced by social norms and the expectations of others. This book brings together an international group of researchers discussing private and public selves and their interaction through attitudes and behavior. The effects of the social context on attitude-behavior relations and persuasion is the central theme of this book, which--in its combination of theoretical exposition, critique, and empirical research--should be of interest to both basic and applied social psychologists.

Utilizing "new wave" research including new psychological theories, new statistical techniques, and a stronger methodology, this collection unites a diversity of recent research perspectives on attitudes and the psychological functions of an attitude. The objective of the editors was to bring together the bits and pieces of validated data into one systematic and adequate set of general principles leading to the view of attitudes as predictions. As the volume reformulates old concepts, explores new angles, and seeks a relationship among various sub-areas, it also shows improvements in the sophistication of research designs and methodologies, the specifications of variables, and the precision in defining concepts.

The Science of Attitudes is the first book to integrate classic and modern research in the field of attitudes at a scholarly level. Designed primarily for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, the presentation of research will also be useful for current scholars in all disciplines who are interested in how attitudes are formed and changed. The treatment of attitudes is both thorough and unique, taking a historical approach while simultaneously highlighting contemporary views and controversies. The book traces attitudes research from the inception of scientific study following World War II to the issues and methods of research that are prominent features of today’s research. Researchers in the field of attitudes will be particularly interested in classic and modern research on the organization, structure, strength and function of attitudes. Researchers in the field of persuasion will be particularly interested in work on attitude change focusing on propositional and associative learning, metacognition and dynamic theories of dissonance, balance and reactance. The book is designed to present the integration of the properties of the attitude with the dynamic considerations of attitude change. The Science of Attitudes is also the first book on attitudes to devote entire chapters to work on implicit measurements, resistance to persuasion, and social neuroscience.

The effects of various antecedents to cognitive elaboration on the structural properties and subjective beliefs related to attitude strength were examined in 2 experiments. Participants read vaccine-related information and received arguments for and against the implementation of a vaccine program for a fictitious virus. Their ability and motivation to attend to the central merits of the arguments were manipulated using a 2 (high vs. low ability) x 2 (high vs. low motivation) between-participants design, and the effects on 21 attitude- and attitude-strength related outcome variables were observed. Ability was determined by time pressure (Study 1) and distraction (Study 2), and motivation was determined by personal responsibility (Study 1) and involvement (Study 2). A meta-analysis of the experiments revealed that whereas none of the structural properties related to attitude strength were affected, all of the subjective beliefs were affected, and ability and motivation had differential effects. Ability primarily affected beliefs that reflect the validity and consistency of the knowledge base as well as the intensity of the attitude; motivation affected beliefs that reflect the intensity of the attitude and the functional relevance of the attitude object. As well, ability and motivation interacted on a number of variables, with a consistent pattern emerging: High (vs. low) motivation was associated with increased perceived knowledge, clarity, and accessibility, and decreased ambivalence under low ability; the opposite pattern occurred under high ability. Overall, this research represents the first systematic and the most comprehensive attempt to determine which strength dimensions are affected by variations in elaboration. It also provides evidence that the subjective beliefs might operate independent of the structural properties, that various antecedents to elaboration might not be directly interchangeable, and that ability and motivation might have different strength-related outcomes. Finally, this research demonstrated that when used in tandem, the effects of ability and motivation do not necessarily operate in an additive fashion, but can interact in some previously unforeseen ways.

This book provides a needed survey of a truly remarkable number of different theoretical approaches to the related phenomena of attitude and belief change. It focuses on variable perspective theory which is far more deserving of attention than the present level of research activity.

Written by two world-leading academics in the field of attitudes research, is a brand new textbook that gets to the very heart of this fascinating and far-reaching field. Greg Maio and Geoffrey Haddock describe how scientific methods have been used to better understand attitudes and how they change. With the aid of a few helpful metaphors, the text provides readers with a grasp of the fundamental concepts for understanding attitudes and an appreciation of the scientific challenges that lay ahead.