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The self-organization of explicit attitudes
Michael T Wojnowicz1, Melissa J Ferguson, Rick Dale
1Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. mtw28@cornell.edu
Psychological Science
|October 13, 2009
Summary
Explicit attitudes form through a dynamic process where conflicting information self-organizes. Hand movements reveal this internal conflict when forming judgments about racial groups.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Social Psychology
Background:
- Explicit attitudes feel personally endorsed, yet their formation process remains unclear.
- Implicit biases are detectable, but the transition to conscious, explicit attitudes is complex.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the dynamic, continuous process underlying the formation of explicit attitudes.
- To explore how conflicting information sources interact to produce a final, self-reported attitude.
Main Methods:
- Participants reported explicit attitudes (like/dislike) toward racial groups using a cursor.
- Hand-movement trajectories (x- and y-coordinates) were recorded in real-time.
- Analysis focused on path curvature and movement dynamics.
Main Results:
- Hand movements showed greater curvature toward 'dislike' when reporting positive explicit attitudes toward Black people compared to White people.
- Movement trajectories exhibited disorder and competing velocity profiles.
- These dynamics supported the hypothesis of conflicting constraints interacting to form attitudes.
Conclusions:
- Explicit attitudes emerge from a continuous, dynamic self-organization of conflicting information.
- Hand-movement analysis offers insights into the temporal dynamics of attitude formation.
- This research challenges static views of explicit attitude generation.
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