Cognitive Processes in Attitude Change

Abstract

A common definition of attitude is a general and relatively enduring evalua­ tion of some person (including oneself), group, object, or issue (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986a). By relatively enduring, we simply mean that the evaluation associated with the attitude object is stored in long-term memory, and therefore is potential­ ly retrievable (e.g., Fazio, 1986). By general, we mean that an attitude refers to the person's most global or overall assessment of the attitude object. Specific experiences and attributes associated with the attitude object also are stored in memory and can vary in their individual evaluations. Although psychologists typi­ cally measure attitudes on a bipolar evaluative continuum (e.g., Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957), this does not mean that attitudes necessarily are represented in a scalar fashion in memory (e.g., Devine & Ostrom, 1988), or that additional information about attitudes cannot be gleaned by assessing the positive and nega­ tive features of attitudes independently (e.g., Kaplan, 1972; Thompson, Zanna, & Griffin, in press). Attitudes typically are assumed to be learned over time, although it is now clear that there are at least indirect genetic contributions to attitude development as well (e.g., Eaves, Eysenck, & Martin, 1989; Tesser, 1993).

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