The moderating influence of attitude strength on the susceptibility to context effects in attitude surveys.

In 3 experiments, the authors assessed whether attitude strength moderates the susceptibility of attitudes to item context effects in surveys. In Experiment 1, respondents completed multiple measures of attitude strength. Three weeks later, respondents participated in a context experiment. Results revealed that respondents with weak attitudes exhibited significantly larger context effect for 1 of 2 issues. In Experiment 2, the results of Experiment l were conceptually replicated by use of measures of interattitudinal embeddedness to assess attitude strength. In Experiment 3, significant strength-moderated context effects were found when attitude strength was assessed in a multi-item, multidimensional manner but not when it was assessed with a single item. Discussion focuses on measurement and theoretical issues related to the moderation and mediation of context effects in attitude surveys.

[1]  J. Krosnick.  Attitude importance and attitude change , 1988 .

[2]  Jon A. Krosnick,et al.  Attitude Importance and Attitude Accessibility , 1989 .

[3]  R. Fazio,et al.  Attitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude-perception and attitude-behavior relations: an investigation of the 1984 presidential election. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[4]  R. Petty,et al.  The gradual threshold model of ambivalence: relating the positive and negative bases of attitudes to subjective ambivalence. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  R. Abelson,et al.  Social Information Processing and Survey Methodology. , 1987 .

[6]  Curtis P. Haugtvedt,et al.  Message Order Effects in Persuasion: An Attitude Strength Perspective , 1994 .

[7]  J. Ouellette,et al.  When it is Embedded, it is Potent: Effects of General Attitude Embeddedness on Formation of Specific Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions , 1996 .

[8]  S. Chaiken,et al.  Attitude strength and resistance processes. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[9]  J. Krosnick,et al.  Attitude intensity, importance, and certainty and susceptibility to response effects. , 1988 .

[10]  M. Gonzales,et al.  The development of interattitudinal consistency: The shared-consequences model , 1997 .

[11]  S. Chaiken,et al.  Affective-cognitive consistency and thought-induced attitude polarization. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[12]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  KNOWING WHAT YOU WANT: MEASURING LABILE VALUES , 1988 .

[13]  Roger Tourangeau,et al.  Belief accessibility and context effects in attitude measurement , 1989 .

[14]  S. Chaiken,et al.  Attitude strength, attitude structure, and resistance to change , 1995 .

[15]  W. Wood.  Retrieval of attitude-relevant information from memory: Effects on susceptibility to persuasion and on intrinsic motivation. , 1982 .

[16]  E. Borgida,et al.  The Causes and Consequences of Personal Involvement , 1995 .

[17]  James M. Olson,et al.  Attitude Importance as a Function of Repeated Attitude Expression , 1994 .

[18]  S. Chaiken,et al.  The generality of the automatic attitude activation effect. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[19]  Jon A. Krosnick,et al.  Some dynamic properties of attitude structures: Context-induced response facilitation and polarization. , 1991 .

[20]  David M. Sanbonmatsu,et al.  On the automatic activation of attitudes. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[21]  J. N. Bassili.  Meta-judgmental versus operative indexes of psychological attributes: The case of measures of attitude strength. , 1996 .

[22]  S. Chaiken,et al.  Attitude structure and function. , 1998 .

[23]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[24]  W. Wood,et al.  Working knowledge and attitude strength: An information-processing analysis. , 1995 .

[25]  S. Fiske,et al.  The novice and the expert: Knowledge-based strategies in political cognition , 1983 .

[26]  E. Borgida,et al.  My Transplant is My Life: Compliance Status as a Moderator of Differential Susceptibility to Item Context Effects , 1995 .

[27]  Y. Trope.  Identification and Inferential Processes in Dispositional Attribution. , 1986 .

[28]  Eugene Borgida,et al.  Personal involvement and the robustness of perceptual salience effects. , 1983 .

[29]  R. Tourangeau,et al.  Cognitive Processes Underlying Context Effects in Attitude Measurement , 1988 .

[30]  Edward R. Tufte,et al.  The quantitative analysis of social problems , 1971 .

[31]  C. Turner,et al.  Fallible indicators of the subjective state of the nation. , 1978 .

[32]  S. Chaiken,et al.  The psychology of attitudes. , 1993 .

[33]  Christopher H. Achen.  Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response , 1975, American Political Science Review.

[34]  John G. Lynch,et al.  Capturing and Creating Public Opinion in Survey Research , 1993 .

[35]  S. Feldman,et al.  A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing Preferences , 1992 .

[36]  Blair T. Johnson.  DSTAT : software for the meta-analytic review of research literatures , 1992 .

[37]  Michael W. Eysenck,et al.  Cognitive psychology : an international review , 1990 .

[38]  M. Zanna,et al.  Let's not be indifferent about (attitudinal) ambivalence. , 1995 .

[39]  S. Presser,et al.  Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context , 1996 .

[40]  H. Hyman,et al.  Some Reasons Why Information Campaigns Fail , 1947 .

[41]  S. Feldman.  Measuring Issue Preferences: The Problem of Response Instability , 1989, Political Analysis.

[42]  Jon A. Krosnick,et al.  Measures and manipulations of strength-related properties of attitudes: Current practice and future directions. , 1995 .

[43]  F. Strack,et al.  Thinking, Judging, and Communicating: A Process Account of Context Effects in Attitude Surveys , 1987 .

[44]  J. Krosnick,et al.  Attitude strength: One construct or many related constructs? , 1993 .

[45]  D. Raden,et al.  Strength-related attitude dimensions , 1985 .

[46]  A. Tesser.  Self-Generated Attitude Change , 1978 .

[47]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Attitudes as temporary constructions , 1992 .

[48]  L. Wheeler,et al.  Review of personality and social psychology , 1980 .

[49]  T. K. Srull,et al.  The Role of Category Accessibility in the Interpretation of Information About Persons: Some Determinants and Implications , 1979 .

[50]  H. J. Einhorn,et al.  Cognitive processes in choice and decision behavior , 1979 .

[51]  B. Pelham,et al.  On confidence and consequence: the certainty and importance of self-knowledge. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[52]  R. Petty,et al.  Attitude strength: An overview. , 1995 .

[53]  Mark P. Zanna,et al.  On the Primacy of Affect in the Determination of Attitudes and Behavior: The Moderating Role of Affective-Cognitive Ambivalence , 1998 .

[54]  Norbert Schwarz,et al.  Constructing reality and its alternatives: an inclusion/ exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects in social judgment , 1992 .

[55]  Norman Miller,et al.  Involvement and dogmatism as inhibitors of attitude change , 1965 .

[56]  Jack M. Feldman,et al.  Self-generated validity and other effects of measurement on belief, attitude, intention, and behavior. , 1988 .

[57]  P. Herr,et al.  On the consequences of priming: Assimilation and contrast effects , 1983 .

[58]  R. Petty,et al.  Attitude strength : antecedents and consequences , 1995 .

[59]  C. Sherif,et al.  Personal involvement, social judgment, and action. , 1973 .

[60]  Steven J. Breckler,et al.  A Comparison of Numerical Indexes for Measuring Attitude Ambivalence , 1994 .

[61]  J. Kounios,et al.  Social value and attitude concepts in semantic memory: Relational structure, concept strength, and the fan effect , 1996 .

[62]  J. Rempel,et al.  Attitudes: A new look at an old concept. , 1988 .

[63]  Keith J. Holyoak,et al.  A Coherence Model of Cognitive Consistency: Dynamics of Attitude Change During the Persian Gulf War , 1993 .

[64]  G. F. Bishop,et al.  ISSUE INVOLVEMENT AND RESPONSE EFFECTS IN PUBLIC OPINION SURVEYS , 1990 .

[65]  Michaela Wänke,et al.  Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects of Context Effects in Social and Psychological Research , 1991 .

[66]  J. Sullivan,et al.  The relationship of national and personal issue salience to attitude accessibility on foreign and domestic policy issues , 1996 .

[67]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  The disruptive effects of explaining attitudes: The moderating effect of knowledge about the attitude object , 1989 .