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Attitudinal and Behavioral Inference in Social Influence: A Process Model of Direct and Indirect Judgments and
Yubo Zhou1, Dolores Albarracín1,2,3
1Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland)
|July 28, 2026
Summary
Understanding social influence requires examining how attitudes and behaviors affect decisions. How people process this information, influenced by their goals and the data itself, is key to consistent findings.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Science
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Social scientists have long studied how others' attitudes and behaviors influence individual decisions.
- Previous research often compared attitudinal and behavioral information's impact on persuasion and social influence.
- Inconsistent findings arise from not fully considering how recipients process attitudinal or behavioral information.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the processing of attitudinal and behavioral information in social influence.
- To understand how processing goals, ability, and information characteristics affect decision-making.
- To reconcile inconsistent findings in persuasion research by examining information processing.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing psychological and social science literature on persuasion and social influence.
- Analysis of how attitudinal and behavioral information are processed by recipients.
- Examination of moderating factors including recipient processing goals, ability, and information characteristics.
Main Results:
- Both attitudinal and behavioral information directly inform judgments.
- Recipients draw inferences from both types of information, influencing subsequent judgments and decisions.
- Information processing is contingent upon recipient goals, cognitive capacity, and the nature of the information presented.
Conclusions:
- A comprehensive understanding of social influence necessitates examining information processing mechanisms.
- Future research should account for recipient-specific factors and information characteristics to predict persuasion outcomes.
- Considering how individuals process attitudinal versus behavioral data can lead to more consistent findings in social influence studies.
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