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Ambivalence and information integration in attitudinal judgment
Frenk van Harreveld1, Joop van der Pligt, Nanne K de Vries
1Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands. f.vanharreveld@uva.nl
The British Journal of Social Psychology
|October 14, 2004
Summary
People process underlying attitude attributes faster than computing overall attitudes. More important attributes and attitude ambivalence increase the time needed for attitudinal judgment.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Psychology
Background:
- Attitudinal judgments involve processing object-related information.
- Understanding the cognitive mechanisms of attitude formation is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of bottom-up information processing in attitudinal judgment.
- To examine the relationship between attribute importance, ambivalence, and judgment speed.
Main Methods:
- Three studies were conducted.
- Participants judged attributes underlying their attitudes and their overall attitudinal response.
- Response times for attribute processing and overall judgment were measured.
Main Results:
- Participants were faster in judging attributes than in computing overall attitudinal responses.
- Increased attribute importance and attitude ambivalence were associated with longer response times for overall judgments.
- Non-ambivalent attitudes relied on congruent attributes, while ambivalent attitudes required integrating incongruent attributes.
Conclusions:
- Bottom-up processing of attitude-relevant attributes influences the speed of attitudinal judgment.
- Attitude ambivalence and the number of important attributes affect the cognitive effort required for overall attitude formation.