Toward a Process Model of the Attitude-Behavior Relation: Accessing One's Attitude Upon Mere Observation of the Attitude Object

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1 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1983, Vol. 44, No. 4, Copyright 1983 by the American Psychological Association, Inc /83/ S00.7S Toward a Process Model of the Attitude-Behavior Relation: Accessing One's Attitude Upon Mere Observation of the Attitude Object Russell H. Fazio, Martha C. Powell, and Paul M. Herr Indiana University A central question with regard to the process by which attitudes "guide" behavior concerns the likelihood that individuals will spontaneously access their attitudes. from memory upon mere observation of the attitude object. This question was examined empirically via the use of a "priming" paradigm. In Experiment 1, it was demonstrated that priming subjects with positive or negative adjectives affected their interpretation of ambiguous information presented in a second, ostensibly unrelated, study. In Experiment 2, subjects were primed with either a positively Or negatively valued attitude object. This, too, affected subsequent interpretations of ambiguous information, implying that subjects had accessed their evaluations upon observation of the attitude object. However, such effects were observed only when the subjects' attitudes could be said to involve a relatively strong object-evaluation association. Attitude.formation through direct, behavioral experience with the attitude objects resulted in accessing the attitude upon mere observation of the object. Attitude formation through indirect, nonbehavioral experience did not, unless the object-evaluation association was strengthened by having subjects repeatedly express their attitudes. On the basis of these findings, a model of the process by which attitudes guide behavior is proposed and discussed. During the last decade, social psychologists have displayed a renewed interest in the attitude-behavior relation (see Cialdini, Petty, & Cacioppo, 1981; Eagly & Himmelfarb, 1978; Zanna, Higgins, & Herman, 1982). The resurgence of research on this issue stems, at least in part, from reviews of the literature that seriously questioned whether attitudes are at all predictive of later behavior (e.g., Wicker, 1969). In response, researchers have sought to determine when attitudes might predict behavior by attempting to identify moderators of the attitude-behavior relation. Considerable progress has been made in this regard. Many situational variables (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1973; Schofield, 1975; This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant BNS to the first author. The authors thank Jerome M, Chertkoff, E. Tory Higgins, Steven J. Sherman, Robert S. Wyer, and Mark P. Zanna for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Requests for reprints should be sent to Russell H. Fazio, Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 4740S. 723 Warner & DeFleur, 1969), personality factors (McArthur, Kiesler, & Cook, 1969; Snyder, 1979; Zanna, Olson, & Fazio, 1980), and attitudinal qualities (Fazio & Zanna, 1978; Norman, 1975; Schwartz, 1978) have been implicated as determinants of the degree to which observed behavior is consistent with attitudes. Despite this recent resurgence of research on the attitude-behavior relation, little attention has been paid to the issue of how attitudes "guide" behavior. Throughout the literature, mention is made of attitudes "guiding" or "influencing" later behavior with little or no accompanying explanation as to how this process might operate. Not only would such a process approach be of importance in and of itself but it also would have implications for past research on the "when" question, that is, research that has identified determinants of attitude-behavior consistency. Research examining a process view may further suggest why various variables moderate the strength of the attitude-behavior relation.

2 724 R. FAZIO, M. POWELL, AND P. HERR The first step in any process model of the attitude-to-behavior link would seem to concern the accessibility of the attitude from memory, that is, the likelihood that, or readiness with which, the attitude can be retrieved from memory upon observation of the attitude object. If an attitude is to guide behavior, it must first be accessed from memory. Only when accessed, and consequently salient, can an attitude exert any influence on behavior. Indeed, Snyder and Swann (1976) found substantial covariation between attitudes toward affirmative action and judgments of liability in a simulated sex-discrimination case only when subjects' attitudes had been made salient by asking them to organize and consider their thoughts about affirmative action prior to reading the case history. This finding illustrates the critical importance of attitude accessibility. Furthermore, it suggests that investigating attitude accessibility is necessary if an understanding of the process by which attitudes guide behavior is to be achieved. It becomes important, then, to consider what might determine attitude accessibility. What variables determine whether individuals will access their attitudes upon encountering or observing the attitude object? Some suggestions are provided by a recent report by Fazio, Chen, McDonel, and Sherman (1982). They pointed out that one potential determinant is suggested by the very definition of attitude. Although numerous definitions have been proposed (see Greenwald, 1968; McGuire, 1969), all possess one common feature. An attitude is typically viewed as involving a categorization of an object along an evaluative dimension (e.g., Fishbein, 1963, 1966; Jones & Gerard, 1967; Thurstone, 1946). Fazio et al. (1982) suggest viewing an attitude as an association between a given object and a given evaluation and note that the strength of this object-evaluation association can vary. Furthermore, the strength of this association may determine the accessibility of the attitude from memory. If strongly associated with the object, the evaluation may be accessed easily; if only weakly associated, accessing the evaluation may be much more difficult. In two experiments, Fazio et al. (1982) directly manipulated the strength of the object-evaluation association. Subjects were introduced to a set of intellectual puzzles by observing a videotape of an individual working with each type of puzzle. All subjects then evaluated the interest value of each puzzle type. In order to strengthen the object-evaluation association, the experimenter, using an appropriate ruse, asked half of the subjects to copy their ratings onto two additional forms..essentially, then, these subjects were induced to note repeatedly, and express, their evaluation of each puzzle type. This simple manipulation had a profound effect on attitude accessibility. Accessibility was operationally measured by the latency with which subjects could respond to inquiries about their attitudes. Subjects were presented with a series of slides, each of which listed the name of a puzzle type followed by an evaluative adjective. The subjects' task was to press a "Yes" or a "No" control button to indicate whether the adjective was descriptive of their attitudes toward the puzzle type. Response times were significantly faster in the repeated-expression condition than in the single-expression condition. Hence, it appears that the strength of the object-evaluation association does determine attitude accessibility. A second experiment by Fazio et al., employing the repeated-expression manipulation, revealed that the strength of the objectevaluation association exerts an impact on attitude-behavior consistency. When provided with a "free play" opportunity during which they could work on any of the puzzle types that they had earlier evaluated, subjects in the repeated-expression condition behaved more consistently with their attitudes than did subjects in the single-expression condition. This finding is exactly what would be predicted from the notion that attitude accessibility is a central factor in the attitudeto-behavior process. Any variable that enhances attitude accessibility, as does repeated attitudinal expression, will promote attitudebehavior consistency. In sum, these two experiments provide us with some confidence concerning the utility of a conceptual framework that views attitudes as object-evaluation associations and that emphasizes the strength of this association as a key determinant of attitude accessibility. We mentioned earlier that one of the assets

3 ATTITUDE ACCESSIBILITY 725 of a process approach to the study of the attitude-behavior relation is that it may serve to explain how and why certain variables affect the degree to which attitude-behavior correspondence is observed. One such variable is the manner of attitude formation. In a series of research (see Fazio & Zanna, 1981, for a review), it has been documented that attitudes based on direct behavioral experience with the attitude object are more predictive of later behavior than attitudes based on indirect, nonbehavioral experience. For example, individuals who form their attitudes toward a set of intellectual puzzles after being provided with an opportunity to work examples of each puzzle type (direct experience) display greater consistency between their reported interest in and actual behavior toward each puzzle type than do individuals who formed attitudes after hearing a description and seeing examples of each puzzle type (indirect experience). Using the same response-time methodology described above, Fazio et al. (1982) found that the manner of attitude formation affected attitude accessibility. Subjects whose attitudes were based on direct experience were able to respond more quickly to inquiries about their attitudes than were subjects whose attitudes were based on indirect experience. This finding was discussed in relation to Bern's self-perception theory (1972). In accord with the core assumption of that theory, Fazio et al. suggested that individuals find behavior toward an object to be a very indicative reflection of their evaluation of the object and, hence, can develop a strong, and easily accessible, association between the object and the evaluation following direct, behavioral experience. (Indeed, Herr and Fazio, Note 1, in an experiment that also employed the response-time measurement of accessibility, found at least suggestive evidence for the notion that enhanced accessibility results only from "unr manded," freely chosen behavior, just as one would expect from this self-perception interpretation.) Following indirect experience, although the individual can and will express an attitude, the association between the object and the evaluation may not be well formed and the attitude, hence, is less accessible. This differential accessibility would appear to explain why attitudes based on direct versus indirect experience differ in the degree to which they prompt attitudinally consistent behavior. In sum, a process approach has thus far proven quite fruitful. Attitude accessibility appears to exert a key role in the process by which attitudes guide behavior. Furthermore, the research suggests that any variable that strengthens the object-evaluation association" has a corresponding impact on attitude accessibility and attitude-behavior consistency. Finally, the approach has served to suggest why one particular variable (the manner of attitude formation) moderates the attitudebehavior relation. Despite this success, the research suffers from one serious drawback at a methodological level. In order to assess accessibility, it was necessary to have the subjects respond to inquiries about their attitudes. In effect, subjects were asked what their attitudes were. However, in terms of the question posed earlier with regard to the process linking attitudes and behavior, the critical issue is whether individuals access their attitudes upon mere observation of the attitude object, not upon direct inquiry about the object. It appears plausible to assume, as Fazio et al. did, that latency of response to an attitudinal inquiry would covary with the likelihood of accessing the attitude upon encountering the object. That is, one would think that an individual who displays accessibility in the sense of quickly responding to an attitudinal inquiry would also be relatively likely to access the attitude without any prompting whatsoever upon mere observation of the object. In the case of an attitudinal inquiry, the stronger the object-evaluation association, the faster the individual can respond. In the case of mere observation of the object, the stronger the object-evaluation association, the more likely it may be that the evaluation "comes to mind" upon perceiving the attitude object. No matter how plausible, the issue of whether the strength of the object-evaluation association determines the likelihood of accessing one's attitude upon mere observation remains untested. Consequently, we sought to arrive at a methodology that would permit us to draw conclusions about attitude accessibility without requiring us to question the individual

4 726 R. FAZIO, M. POWELL, AND P. HERR directly about his or her attitude. Here, a basic principle of social cognition appears very useful. It has been demonstrated that once a category has been activated, the accessibility of that category is temporarily increased, enhancing the likelihood that the category will be applied to the interpretation of a new object (e.g., Higgins & King, 1981; Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977; Srull & Wyer, 1979). For example, Higgins et al. (1977) exposed subjects to various personality trait terms and examined whether this "priming" affected subsequent judgments of a target person in an ostensibly separate second experiment. Provided that the primed trait terms were applicable to the description provided of the target person's behavior, they exerted an impact on judgments of the person. Those subjects who had been primed with positive traits perceived the stimulus person as more desirable than those who had been primed with negative traits. Apparently, once the category had been primed via the exposure to the specific trait terms, the category was highly accessible and was likely to be applied to the interpretation of the target's behavior. The present research employs this principle and methodology to examine whether at least some sorts of attitudes are accessed upon mere observation of the attitude object. It should be possible to infer from individuals' interpretations of some new information whether positive or negative categories had been activated by earlier exposure to an attitude object. If so, those interpretations should be consistent with the individual's evaluatitfn of the attitude object. That is, if the object is positively valued and if upon mere observation of the object the individual accessed his or her attitude, then the positive category has been "primed." Hence, we should be able to ascertain from the individual's interpretation of some newly provided, ambiguous information whether the evaluation that the individual associates with the object was activated by exposure to the object. In this case, a relatively positive interpretation would allow us to infer that the positive evaluation of the attitude object must have been activated. Obviously, the same reasoning would suggest that a relatively negative judgment would be indicative of the individual's having accessed a negative attitude toward the object upon mere observation of the object. Experiment 1 Before actually testing our hypothesis concerning the accessing of attitudes upon mere observation of the attitude object, it appeared necessary to establish the applicability of the general social cognition principle with regard to priming to the specific experimental context that concerned us. In particular, it seemed essential to document two points: (a) that the priming effects that have been observed in the domain of personality traits could be extended to a more attitudinal context and (b) that our specific procedures were capable of revealing the influence of having earlier activated a given category. Hence, Experiment 1 involved a conceptual replication of the Higgins et al. (1977) research. Subjects were primed with positive or negative evaluative adjectives that were or were not applicable to the information that was to be judged later. In the context of an ostensibly "unrelated" second study on person perception, subjects considered why a target subject had volunteered to participate in an experimental task. One possible explanation was that the target subject agreed because he was interested in the task. We predicted that subjects within the applicable conditions would differ in the degree to which they arrived at this particular conclusion depending on whether they had been primed with positive or negative adjectives. Subjects in the positive condition should be more likely to conclude that the target's interest in the task was critical than subjects in the negative condition. Within the nonapplicable conditions, no such difference was expected. Following Higgins et al., these conditions were included in order to examine the possibility that exposure to positive and negative adjectives might produce differential affective states that are responsible for any judgmental differences observed later. Method Subjects. Sixty Indiana University undergraduates enrolled in an introductory psychology course were recruited for an experiment on "color perception." Panic-

5 ATTITUDE ACCESSIBILITY 727 ipation fulfilled part of the students' psychology course research requirement. Subjects participated individually and were randomly assigned to one of the four cells of the design (n= 15 per cell). Procedure. After being greeted by the experimenter, the subject was informed that the experiment concerned color perception, and received a description of the task. The subject was told that pairs of slides would be presented in a series of trials. The first slide of each pair simply presented a word; the second presented a slide with a colored background and a color name printed on the background. The subject was instructed to identify the background color aloud as quickly as possible and to then recite the "memory" word that had appeared on the first sjide of the pair. While the subject was performing the task, the experimenter, employing a stopwatch, pretended to record, the latency with which the subject responded. This ruse merely served to bolster the cover story. i A total of 10 slide pairs were prepared. Six of the 10 memory words presented an object-noun (e.g., door, corner, shelf). The other four memory words (always occupying the third, fifth, seventh, and eighth positions in the series) constituted the manipulation. The adjectives 1 used in each condition were (a) positive/applicable: pleasant, exciting, entertaining, amusing; (b) negative/ applicable: frustrating, irritating, tiresome, dull; (c) positive/nonapplicable: tactful, romantic, innocent, confident; and (c) negative/nonapplicable: incompetent, disobedient, noisy, antisocial. Both the positive and the negative words across the two levels of applicability were selected so as to be equivalent in their likability, on the basis of norms compiled by Anderson (1968). On each trial, the memory word was presented for approximately 5 sec, followed by a 5-sec interval. Then the color slide was presented and the subject responded as quickly as possible. The set of 10 pairs of slides was presented twice. At the conclusion of the task, subjects were ostensibly debriefed. In keeping with the cover story regarding color perception, they received an explanation of the Stroop effect. They were thanked for their participation and prepared to depart. As they were leaving, the experimenter stopped them and casually mentioned that another experimenter in the laboratory was conducting some research. Although she could not be here today, she had asked the experimenter to invite subjects to participate in her experiment. The experimenter claimed that she knew nothing more about the other researcher's project.. However, this other researcher had told her that the experiment was very short and that all the materials were in another room in the laboratory and that the task was self-explanatory. When the subject agreed to-participate, as all subjects did, the experimenter simply directed the subject to the other room and then left the subject alone, In the other room, the subject found a letter from the researcher. The letter explained that she was doing some research on person perception and that frequently she described the behavior of a previous subject in the laboratory to other subjects and asked them to interpret the behavior. The letter continued by asking the subject to read the short description that appeared on a sheet on the table and then to complete the attached questionnaire. The description was deliberately constructed to be very ambiguous, for previous research has shown priming to lead to maximal interpretation of the information in a manner that is consistent with the activated categories when the information being judged is highly ambiguous (Srull & Wyer, 1980). In this case, the paragraph read as follows: Ted is a high school student who was recently a subject in our lab. After he was finished with the experiment he still had half an hour to wait for his ride home. We asked him if he wanted to help us with another experiment while he waited. He was told that this experiment simply involved working at an experimental task. The task consisted of working on and attempting to solve a number of examples of a particular type of problem. Ted was shown an example. We also told him that he would be paid one dollar for each ten minutes he spent working on the experimental task. Ted agreed to participate. He spent twenty minutes working on the problems and then left the lab and waited for his ride outside the building. Subjects were then asked to respond to three questions concerning why led agreed to participate in the experimental task. On scales ranging from 0 ("Not at all a factor in his decision to participate) to 10 ("Very much a factor in his decision to participate"), subjects were asked to indicate the extent to which Ted agreed to participate "in order to earn the extra money," "to have something to do while waiting for his ride," and "because he liked and was interested in the experimental task." When subjects completed the task, they were carefully probed for suspicion and thoroughly debriefed. No subject reported any awareness that the color perception and the person perception tasks were in any way connected. Results and Discussion Because each subject essentially indicated the extent to which the target person's behavior could be attributed to the money, the wait, and his interest in the task, these scores were combined to form one overall attributional index. The interest score was sub- 1 The selection of the adjectives was made on an intuitive basis with a number of criteria in mind. Positive/ applicable and negative/applicable terms were intended to imply characteristics of an entity with which one might interact out of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, respectively. Furthermore, these applicable terms were-chosen because they were potentially descriptive of one's evaluation of a puzzle. Because the next experiment was to involve priming with objects (puzzles) rather than adjectives, we deemed it desirable to select adjectives that could be associated with.puzzles. In fact, each of the applicable adjectives had been employed in previous research involving the response-time paradigm described earlier. Once we selected the applicable adjectives, nonapplicable words that did not have implications for intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and that were equivalent to the applicable adjectives in their likability were chosen.

6 728 R. FAZIO, M. POWELL, AND P. HERR Table 1 Number of Subjects in Each Condition Above and Below the Median Applicable Nonapplicable Attributional index scores Positive Negative Positive Negative Above median Below median 4 11 Note. Scoring below the median reflects a relatively stronger attribution to Ted's interest in the task than does scoring above the median traded from the average of the money and wait scores. Thus, lower numbers reflect a relatively stronger attribution to Ted's interest in the experimental task. The pattern of the means was just as predicted. Within the nonapplicable conditions, the mean score of subjects who had been primed with positive terms (M = 3.033) was identical to the mean of subjects primed with negative terms (M ). As expected, within the applicable conditions, subjects primed with positive terms displayed a lower mean (M= 1.567) than subjects primed with negative terms (M = 3.200). However, an analysis of variance on these index scores failed to reveal any statistically significant effects. Perusal of the distribution of scores indicated that the variances within each condition were very large, averaging Consequently, the data were also examined nonparametrically. A median split intended to distinguish those subjects who more strongly attributed Ted's behavior to his interest from those who did so more weakly was performed. The number of subjects in each condition who fell above and below the median is presented in Table 1. The proportion of subjects in each condition who scored below the median was analyzed by use of the normal approximation to the binomial distribution (Steiger, 1980). The data revealed a statistically significant valence by applicability interaction (z = 2.45, p <.025). Furthermore, within the applicable conditions, a Fisher's exact test revealed a statistically significant difference between the positive and the negative priming conditions (p =.035). Subjects were more likely to view Ted as having agreed to participate out of interest in the experiment if they had been primed with positive adjectives than if they had been primed with negative adjectives. Within the nonapplicable conditions, the pattern was nonsignificantly reversed, indicating that the observed effects are not simply a function of differential affective states having resulted from exposure to the evaluative adjectives. The present findings constitute a conceptual replication of previous research on accessibility. As in Higgins et al. (1977), priming affected the interpretation of subsequently provided information only when the primed concepts could be considered applicable to the description that was judged. The nonapplicable primes were of no benefit with regard to the encoding and interpretation of the stimulus information. Higgins and Chaires (1980) discuss the concept of applicability as involving a sufficient match between the features of the primed constructs and the features of the stimulus information being judged. In other words, applicability centers on the likelihood that the stimulus information can be regarded as an instance of the primed category. This interpretation has received additional support from recent research (Herr, Sherman, & Fazio, in press) that has identified two necessary conditions ambiguity of the information being judged and applicability of the primes for the priming effects illustrated in this and past research to occur. Judgments of the size of an animal were in accord with the priming only when the stimulus animal was ambiguous (by virtue of its being fictitious) and when the priming consisted of moderately small or moderately large animals. That is, fictitious animals were judged as larger when the subjects had earlier been primed with moderately large animals than with moderately small animals. This same effect was not observed when real, nonambiguous animals were judged with regard to size. More relevant to our discussion of applicability, this effect also was not observed when the priming consisted of extremely large or extremely small animals. In such a case, subjects apparently perceived it as unlikely that the stimulus animals could be members of such extreme categories. The present results also represent an ex-

7 ATTITUDE ACCESSIBILITY 729 tension of the previous research on category accessibility. Specifically, Higginset al. (1977) and Srull and Wyer (1979, 1980) demonstrated that activating a particular concept affects interpretation of an ambiguous behavior (e.g., whether a given behavior is judged as hostile or kind). Higgins and Chaires (1980) extended these results by demonstrating that relations among concepts could be primed and that such priming produced effects on the interpretation of sets of information. Subjects for whom an "And" relation was primed (by exposure to such terms as ajar and cherries) were more apt to view a box filled with thumbtacks as two separate entities and, hence, were more successful at solving the Duncker (1945) candle problem than were subjects for whom an "Of" relation was primed (e.g., ajar of cherries). The present research represents yet another step. The results indicate that causal attributions can also be affected by category accessibility. Activation of concepts that implied interest led subjects to view the target person's compliance as due to his intrinsic interest in the task. Experiment 2 Although somewhat weaker than we would have hoped, the results of Experiment 1 indicate that it may be possible to employ this paradigm successfully to examine the issue that concerned us accessing one's attitude upon mere observation of the attitude object. Upon presentation of an object that is positively or negatively valued, an individual may access the associated evaluation. If such activation does occur, then the individual is functionally in the same position as our subjects in Experiment 1, for whom the category was directly activated by exposure to terms representative of the category. Hence, effects on subsequent judgments parallel to those observed in the applicable conditions of Experiment 1 were expected. However, we would predict that such activation upon mere observation is more likely in the case of attitudes involving a strong object-evaluation association. To be more specific, we would expect such effects to be stronger when the attitude is based on direct experience or has been repeatedly expressed than when the attitude is based on indirect experience and has been expressed only once. Recall that on the basis of the latency of response to attitudinal inquires, it appears that attitude formation through direct experience and repeated attitudinal expression each enhance attitude accessibility relative to the accessibility observed following attitude formation through indirect experience. Method Subjects. One hundred twelve Indiana University undergraduates participated in the experiment in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Each subject was randomly assigned to one of the six conditions of the experiment and participated individually. Procedure. As in Experiment 1, subjects were recruited for an experiment concerned with "color perception." However, after being greeted by the experimenter, the subject was informed that because the color perception experiment involved such little time we paired it with another short experiment. The subject was to participate first in this other experiment, which purportedly concerned the construction of an aptitude test to measure "observational skill and strategy development." Presumably, the experimenter was interested in subjects' reactions to some potential test items, all of which took the form of intellectual puzzles. Under this ruse, subjects were introduced to a set of five intellectual puzzles. Descriptions of the five.puzzle types can be found in Fazio et al. (1982). The manner in which subjects were introduced to the puzzles was varied. One third of the subjects were given unsolved sample pages of each type of puzzle and asked to work the examples to become acquainted with each puzzle type (direct experience condition). The remaining subjects were shown the very same sample pages (but this time all the examples had been previously solved and the answers were clearly indicated) as they listened to a tape-recorded audio narration that described each puzzle type and explained the solution to each example. All subjects then completed a scale (where -5 = extremely boring and +5 = extremely interesting) on which they indicated how interesting they found each type of puzzle. At this point in the procedure, then, one third of the subjects had formed and expressed attitudes following direct experience with the puzzles and two thirds had done so following indirect experience. Half of this latter set of subjects then were induced, in effect, to complete the attitude scale an additional two times. They form the repeated-expression condition. Just as in Fazio et al. (1982), the experimenter, in an offhand and casual manner, asked the subjects to help her out by copying their attitude ratings onto two additional forms. This information has to go to a number of different people. I keep this copy, but I've got to get these ratings to the professor I'm working for and to our computer keypuncher. Rather than my copying this information onto the forms for these people, maybe you could do it for me. Here just copy your ratings onto each of these forms. Be careful, though, because the puzzles

8 730 R. FAZIO, M. POWELL, AND P. HERR aren't listed in the same order on each form. Each of the people made up their own form. Each form was distinct from the original. One, entitled the "Keypuncher's Form" and listing an address at the campus computing center, presented a computer code word for each puzzle and involved checking 1 of 11 boxes ranging from -5 to +5. The other form, entitled "Interest Ratings Summary," was ostensibly for the professor for whom the experimenter worked and involved the subject's writing the appropriate scale digit on a blank next to the puzzle name. The five puzzle types were listed in different orders on the three attitude scales so as to prevent subjects from simply copying five numbers without noting the associated puzzle type. In this way, subjects in this condition were forced to associate a given puzzle type repeatedly with a given attitudinal rating. Thus, during the initial phase of the experiment, three conditions were established: (a) direct experience, (b) indirect experience followed by a single expression of the attitudes, and (c) indirect experience followed by repeated expression. Once the manipulations had been accomplished, the experimenter informed the subject that the experiment was now completed and said that she would check if the color perception experimenter was ready for the subject. She then walked to a different room in the laboratory and provided the second experimenter with two pieces of information, the name of the puzzle type that the subject had evaluated most positively and the one that the subject had rated most negatively. (In the event that more than one puzzle received the most positive or the most negative rating, that is, in the event of ties, the first experimenter selected one of the puzzles on a random basis to transmit to the second experimenter.) The second experimenter then randomly assigned the subjectto a positive or a negative condition, which determined which of the two puzzles the subject would be exposed to during the color perception experiment. In this way, the first experimenter was kept blind as to whether the subject was in the positive or negative valence condition in the second phase of the experiment, and the second experimenter was blind to the condition (direct experience, indirect experience, or repeated expression) that had been established in the first phase of the experiment. After transmitting the necessary information to the second experimenter, the first experimenter returned to the subject, told the subject that the other experimenter was ready, and directed,the subject to the second experimental room. There the subject performed the same sort of task that occurred in Experiment 1. The only difference was that the memory word slides used in Experiment 2 presented a drawing of an object along with the name of "the object. As before, each memory slide was followed by a colored slide and the subject was required to name the background color and then the object that had appeared on the preceding slide. As in Experiment 1, there were 10 such pairs of slides, and the entire set was presented twice. In nine of the pairs, the memory object was a neutral filler (e.g., umbrella, phone). For one of the pairs (always the seventh one), however, the memory slide presented either the most positively or the most negatively valued puzzle type. As with the neutral objects, the name was typed on the slide. Once the trials had been completed, the subject was "debriefed," thanked, and dismissed, just as in Experiment 1. As the subject was leaving the laboratory, the experimenter stopped the subject and, in the same manner as in Experiment 1, asked the subject to participate in yet another experiment. As before, the experimenter feigned ignorance as to the nature of this other experiment and merely directed the subject to the room with all the experimental materials. These materials were identical to those employed in Experiment 1 with two exceptions. In the hope of providing a greater opportunity for activated categories to exert an influence, we made a change in the description of Ted's behavior so as to make the paragraph even more ambiguous (cf. Herr et al., in press; Srull & Wyer, 1980). Unlike the description used in Experiment 1, which at one point stated that the experimental task that Ted performed "consisted of... working on and attempting to solve a number of examples of a particular type of problem," the revised description provided no information at all about the experimental task. The above sentence was replaced by the statement, "The task was carefully described to Ted." The second revision that was made involved the dependent measures. Before completing the same three scales employed in Experiment 1, the subjects responded in an open-ended fashion to the question, "In your opinion, why did Ted agree to participate in the experimental task?" Responses were evaluated by two judges, blind to experimental condition, on a scale from -2 to +2, where the negative pole reflected a judgment that Ted agreed because of his interest in the task and the positive pole reflected a judgment that Ted agreed because of the payment and/or because he had to wait for his ride. The two judges discussed any disagreements in their ratings, although they were not obliged to reach a consensus. Nevertheless, interjudge reliability was very high (r =.96). After completing the dependent measures, the subjects were probed for suspicion and thoroughly debriefed. Once again, no subject reported perceiving a connection between the last phase of the experiment and the earlier phases. Results As in Experiment 1, scores on the three attribution scales were combined by subtracting the score on the interest scale from the average of the scores on the money and wait scales. As is to be expected, this index correlated quite highly (r =.67, p <.001) with the two judges' mean ratings of the openended responses. Consequently, a single index based on the sum of standardized scores from the scalar index and from the judges' estimates was computed. 2 The means within each condition are displayed in Table 2. A 3 (direct experience, indirect experience, repeated expression) X 2 (positive/negative) 2 Separate analyses of the scores from the open-ended measure and of the scores from the scalar index reveal the same pattern of means and effects as the overall analysis reported above.

9 ATTITUDE ACCESSIBILITY 731 Table 2 Mean Attribution Scores Valence of attitude object Condition Positive Negative Direct experience Indirect experience Repeated expression Note. More positive scores indicate a stronger attribution to Ted's participating because of the money or the wait. More negative scores reflect a stronger attribution to Ted's interest in the task. analysis of variance was performed on this index. The analysis revealed a marginally significant main effect of valence of the puzzle type, F(\, 106) = 2.72, p<.\\. More importantly, and in accord with the hypotheses, the analysis revealed a condition by valence interaction, F(2, 106) = 2.87, p =.06. x More precise tests of the hypotheses are provided by two a priori interactive contrasts. As predicted, judgments of Ted's behavior were more in accord with the valence of the primed puzzle type in the direct than in the indirect experience condition, t(\06) = 2,13, p <.05. A second contrast examined the difference between the indirect experience condition and the repeated expression conditions and also revealed a reliable effect, *(1Q6) = 2.01, p <.05. Thus, just as would be expected on the basis of the research concerning latency of response to an attitudinal inquiry, subjects who had formed attitudes on the basis of direct experience or who had repeatedly expressed their attitudes were more likely to access those attitudes upon mere observation of the attitude object than were subjects who formed attitudes through indirect experience and expressed the attitudes only a single time. In fact, subjects exposed to positively and negatively valued puzzles differed from one another in both the direct experience condition, f(106) = 2.01, p <.05, and the repeated expression condition, f(106) = 1.84, p <.07. Within the indirect experience condition, the means tended to be, if anything, in the reverse direction, 1(106) It is important to note that the above findings are in no way confounded by differences in attitude extremity among the "direct experience, indirect experience, and repeated expression subjects. Interest ratings of the puzzle selected for use in the color perception phase of the experiment, that is, each subject's most positively evaluated or most negatively evaluated puzzle, were equivalent across these three conditions (both Fs < 1). Despite this equivalence in terms of measured extremity of the attitude, differences clearly existed between the groups in terms of the likelihood of accessing the attitude upon exposure to the attitude object. General Discussion The findings of Experiment 2 strongly support the proposed conceptualization. Attitudes can be accessed as a consequence of mere observation of the attitude object. However, such activation occurs only to the extent that the attitude is characterized by a relatively strong object-evaluation association. Subjects who formed their attitudes on the basis of indirect experience and who did not strengthen the associations by expressing repeatedly their attitudes failed to display any evidence of having accessed the evaluation upon exposure to the attitude object. Only when the object-evaluation association was quite strong because the person had expressed the association repeatedly or because the person had formed the attitude through direct behavioral experience with the object was there an indication that the evaluation had been accessed spontaneously upon observation of the object. What is critical is that the present evidence for subjects' having accessed their attitudes is found in a situation in which the subject is merely exposed to the attitude object. The subject was never asked during the color perception experiment to consider his or her attitude. Nor was it to the subject's advantage to do so in the immediate situation, for the subject's task simply was to identify the background color and recite the memory word as quickly as possible. Despite the irrelevance of one's attitude to the immediate concerns, subjects who presumably possessed a strong object-evaluation association did apparently access their evaluation of the puzzle type upon exposure to the puzzle during the color perception task. Although the strategy of the present research involved the use of a priming meth-

10 732 R. FAZIO, M. POWELL, AND P. HERR odology as a "tool" by which accessing attitudes upon mere observation of the object could be examined, the research does have implications for priming. The present data indicate that it is not necessary for a construct to be primed directly for priming to affect later judgments. Instead, presentation of an object that the individual strongly associates with the construct can effectively prime the construct. Once it has been activated in such a manner, the primed construct remains accessible and is likely to be employed to interpret ambiguous information that is subsequently presented. Whether the information is encoded via the primed construct is, of course, dependent on additional factors. As indicated by the findings of Experiment 1, it is essential that the primed construct be applicable to the ambiguous information that is to be judged. One would not expect the presentation of an object and the consequent activation of associated constructs to affect later judgments if what is being judged is not of relevance to the primed constructs. Understanding applicability is obviously more difficult, however, in the case of indirect priming with objects than in the case of direct priming, as in Experiment 1. One cannot be certain of what particular evaluations are associated with the object and, hence, are primed by exposure to the object. In the present research, two possibilities exist. On the one hand, exposure to the puzzle during the color perception task may have activated rather specific evaluations, such as interesting or entertaining in the case of the positive valence puzzle and boring or dull in the case of the negative valence puzzle. On the other hand, exposure may have activated more global evaluations of like and dislike. Regardless of whether specific or global evaluations were activated in the present experiment, the activated constructs were apparently applicable to judgments of the degree to which the target person acted out of intrinsic interest in the experimental task. Either the specific or the global evaluations could have been employed to guide one's interpretation of the information. In contrast, the nonapplicable primes in Experiment 1, although positive or negative in nature, were specific. This specificity resulted in their not being useful with regard to the interpretation of the ambiguous description. More central to our present concerns are the implications of the data for views of attitudes. Clearly, some kinds of attitudes can be accessed spontaneously upon mere observation of the object. Importantly, the present results parallel those of previous research that operationalized attitude accessibility as the latency of response to an attitudinal inquiry (Fazio et al., 1982). It appears, then, that the same variables that determine the speed with which one can respond to an inquiry about one's attitudes also influence the likelihood that one will spontaneously access the attitude upon observation of the attitude object. At a conceptual level, the critical variable is apparently the strength of the object-evaluation association. Any factor that strengthens this association would seem to both decrease response latency and increase the probability of spontaneous accessing upon exposure to the object. The present view of attitudes as objectevaluation associations and our corresponding emphasis on the strength of this association underscores a key feature of recent research on attitudes and their utility as predictors of subsequent behavior. Because object-evaluation associations may differ in their strength, the present focus emphasizes the notion that the attitudes of two individuals with identical attitude-measurement scores may still differ in important ways. This notion is, of course, at the core of recent research findings that indicate that various attitudinal qualities moderate the strength of the attitude-behavior relation (e.g., the manner of attitude formation, confidence in one's attitude, clarity of the attitude as measured by the width of the latitude of rejection [Fazio & Zanna, 1978]; the correspondence between affective and cognitive measures of the attitude [Norman, 1975]). Furthermore, focusing on the object-evaluation association and its corresponding accessibility may provide a means of integrating conceptually what is now a catalog of variables known to moderate the attitude-behavior relation. As Fazio et al. (1982) suggest, each of the above attitudinal qualities may be reflected in the strength of the object-evaluation association and the consequent accessibility of the atti-

11 ATTITUDE ACCESSIBILITY 733 tude. Such a theoretical integration, centering as it does on a variable that is inherent to the process by which attitudes guide behavior, may serve to explain why these attitudinal qualities act as moderators of the attitude-behavior relation. In the present case, it would appear that direct-experience attitudes exert a stronger influence on subsequent behavior than do indirect-experience attitudes because they are more likely to be accessed upon observation of the attitude object. Toward a Process Model of the Attitude- Behavior Relation It is possible (and, indeed, desirable) to consider the present research in the context of the functional value of attitudes; Theorists have considered one of the major functions served by attitudes to be that of organizing and structuring a rather chaotic universe of objects (Katz, 1960; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956). An attitude is thought to provide "a ready aid in 'sizing up' objects and events in the environment" (Smith et al., 1956, p. 41). This object-appraisal function of attitudes is perfectly consistent with the view of attitudes as associations between an object and a given evaluative category. Furthermore, the present research suggests that an attitude may serve this object-appraisal function adequately only to the extent that the attitude involves a relatively strong object-evaluation association. Only then, given the present findings, will the attitude be accessed and serve as a "ready aid in 'sizing up' " the object. Implicit in this notion of attitudes serving an object-appraisal function is the suggestion that, once accessed, attitudes guide information processing. There does exist a rich and varied literature documenting that categorizations of an object along an evaluative dimension influence perceptions relevant to the object. Emphasizing the constructive nature of perception, researchers involved in the "New Look" movement (e.g., Bruner, 1957) long ago demonstrated an association between the value of an object to a given individual and the perception of the object's physical attributes (Bruner & Goodman, 1947; Lambert, Solomon, & Watson, 1949). Similarly, attitudes have been found to relate to what is perceived in an attitudinally relevant pictorial presentation (Proshansky, 1943; Seeleman, 1940). More recently, Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979) demonstrated that individuals' attitudes toward a social policy issue strongly affect their evaluations of relevant empirical evidence. Lingle and Ostrom (1980) also presented evidence that attitudes provide a framework in terms of which subsequent judgmental decisions are made. In the social perception domain, it is apparent that attitudes toward a target person influence the manner in which ambiguous behavior on the part of the target is interpreted and the causal attributions that are made for nonambiguous behaviors (see Darley & Fazio, 1980, for a review of the literature). Just as Smith et al. (1956) proposed, then, attitudes appear to serve as convenient and useful summaries by which we "size up" objects in the environment. The advantage of considering the object appraisal function of attitudes in the present context concerns the suggestion it prompts regarding the process by which attitudes guide behavior. Research on the attitude-perception relation has in the past been a needlessly separate endeavor from research on the attitude-behavior relation. Recognition of the relevance of the object-appraisal function allows us to elucidate a step-by-step model of at least one process by which attitudes might guide behavior. The model must assume (quite reasonably, we believe) that an individual's social behavior is largely a function of his or her perceptions of the attitude object in the immediate situation. Essentially, then, the model views behavior as largely a function of the individual's definition of the situation. This assumption seems warranted on the basis of accumulating evidence concerning social interaction that shows a perceiver's behavior toward a target person to be influenced by his or her immediate perceptions of that target person (e.g., Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977; Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974). Given this assumption, the question, in terms of attitudes guiding behavior, centers on the degree to which the attitude will influence these immediate perceptions. The object-appraisal function and the research cited earlier suggest that it will. However, such selective perception would appear to be predt

12 734 R. FAZIO, M. POWELL, AND P. HERR icated on the individual's having accessed the attitude from memory upon encountering the attitude object. On the basis of the present findings, the likelihood of such activation seems to depend on the strength of the object-evaluation association. Activation may also occur as a consequence of some situational cue that serves to define attitudes as relevant in the immediate situation (see Snyder, 1982). What is critical is that the attitude be accessed. Unless the individual does access the attitude and does consider the object in evaluative terms, the present model suggests that selective perception of the object will not occur. As a result, the individual's immediate perceptions of the object will not be based on the attitude and will prompt behavior that is not necessarily congruent with the attitude. To summarize, the present model of the attitude-behavior relation involves the following sequence: (a) Upon observation of the attitude object, one's attitude must be accessed from memory. That is, the particular evaluative categories with which one has associated the object must become salient, (b) These evaluations are apt, through a process of selective perception, to "color" one's perception of the object in the immediate situation, (c) These immediate perceptions, filtered as they are through the attitude, then influence the individual's behavioral response. The end result is behavior that is consistent with the attitude that initiated and "guided" the entire process. Obviously, the model is in need of further empirical examination. The present research examined only the first step of the model. Nor is the model the only conceivable process by which attitudes can influence behavior. However, the model does provide an approach to the question of how attitudes guide behavior, and it does indicate how the "translation" of attitudes into overt behavior can fail to occur. Each step in the process is necessary for attitude-behavior consistency to be observed, yet each step provides an opportunity for the system to break down. Clearly, the present process approach explicitly links the attitude-behavior relation to recent research in the area of social cognition. The emphasis on accessibility and on the constructive nature of perception is congruent with themes that have proven useful with regard to social cognition. What is somewhat ironic is that the relative neglect of behavior has been noted as a shortcoming of social cognition research (Higgins, Kuiper, & Olson, 1980; Snyder, 1980). The present research and conceptual approach serves to illustrate both how social cognition can be tied to behavior and how social cognition can help us to address a long-neglected question regarding the process by which attitudes guide behavior. Reference Note 1. Herr, P. M., & Fazio, R. H. Attitude accessibility as a function of attitudinal inferences from behavior. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, References Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. Attitudinal and normative variables as predictors of specific behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973, 27, Anderson, N. H. Likableness ratings of 555 personalitytrait words. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968, 9, Bern, D. J. Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 6). New York: Academic Press, Bruner, J. S. On perceptual readiness. Psychological Review, 1957, 64, Bruner, J. S., & Goodman, C. C. Value and need as organizing fators in perception. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1947, 42, Cialdini, R. B., Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. Attitude and attitude change. Annual Review of Psychology, 1981, 32, , Darley, J. M., & Fazio, R. H. Expectancy confirmation processes arising in the social interaction sequence. American Psychologist, 1980,15, Duncker, K. On problem-solving. Psychological Monographs, 1945, 58(5, Whole No. 270). Eagly, A. H., & Himmelfarb, S. Attitudes and opinions. Annual Review of Psychology, 1978, 29, Fazio, R. H., Chen, J., McDonel, E. C., & Sherman, S. J. Attitude accessibility, attitude-behavior consistency, and the strength of the object-evaluation association. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1982,18, Fazio, R. H., & Zanna, M. P. Attitudinal qualities relating to the strength of the attitude-behavior relationship. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1978,14, Fazio, R. H., & Zanna, M. P. Direct experience and attitude-behavior consistency. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 14). New York: Academic Press, Fishbein, M. An investigation of the relationships between beliefs about an object and attitude toward that object. Human Relations, 1963,16,

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