The attitude polarization phenomenon : role of response measure, attitude extremity, and behavioral consequences of reported attitude change

Four studies examined the generality of attitude polarization (C. G. Lord, L. Ross, & M. R. Lepper, 1979). Biased assimilation of essays on 2 controversial issues was substantial and correlated with reported attitude change. Polarization was observed for reported attitude change on capital punishment and generally stronger in Ss with extreme than moderate attitudes. Polarization was not indicated in a pre-post measurement design. For affirmative action, reported polarization was not observed. The hypothesis that Ss reporting polarization would subsequently write particularly strong essays was not supported, although those reporting depolarization wrote relatively weak essays. The results suggest the relevance of individual differences in reported attitude change but do not confirm the powerful inferences frequently drawn regarding the pervasive, undesirable consequences of self-reported attitude polarization. An influential, frequently cited experiment in the social cognition literature is that by Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979). In this study, proponents and opponents of capital punishment were shown an identical set of alleged research findings containing evidence both in favor of and against capital punishment. Two important phenomena were observed. First, subjects evaluated more positively the research that agreed with their preexisting position, a result termed biased assimilation. Thus, subjects who were in favor of capital punishment rated method Xzs superior to method Y if the former yielded support for the deterrent effect of capital punishment, but rated the identical method as inferior if it refuted the efficacy of capital punishment. The converse was true for subjects opposed to capital punishment. The second, particularly intriguing finding was that subjects reported that their attitudes had become more extreme in the direction of their initial point of view after evaluating the research evidence, an effect termed attitude polarization. Thus, showing proponents and opponents of capital punishment an identical body of mixed evidence appeared "to increase further the gap between their views" (Lord et al, 1979, p. 2105). Lord et al. (1979) suggested that in the subjects' biased processing of the research information, they had emerged with an inflated sense of the amount of evidence supporting their initial belief. Correlational analyses involving the relative degree of biased assimilation and the magnitude of reported attitude change (polarization) supported this account. That subjects gave substantially higher evaluations to research that supported

[1]  M. Zanna,et al.  Attitudes and Attitude Change , 1993 .

[2]  S. Fiske.  Social cognition and social perception. , 1993, Annual review of psychology.

[3]  L. Ross,et al.  The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology. , 1992 .

[4]  S. Plous,et al.  Biases in the Assimilation of Technological Breakdowns: Do Accidents Make Us Safer? , 1991 .

[5]  S. Chaiken,et al.  Value conflict and thought-induced attitude change , 1991 .

[6]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Social cognition, 2nd ed. , 1991 .

[7]  L. Ross,et al.  The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology , 1991 .

[8]  M. R. Leippe,et al.  The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence , 1991 .

[9]  L. Ross,et al.  Subjective Construal, Social Inference, and Human Misunderstanding , 1991 .

[10]  S..  Biases in the Assimilation of Technological Breakdowns : Do Accidents Make Us Safer ? , 1991 .

[11]  Z. Kunda,et al.  The case for motivated reasoning. , 1990, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  C. G. Lord.  The "Disappearance" of Dissonance in an Age of Relativism , 1989 .

[13]  L. Berkowitz,et al.  Research Traditions, Analysis, and Synthesis in Social Psychological Theories , 1989 .

[14]  Russell H. Fazio,et al.  Biased Processing as a Function of Attitude Accessibility: Making Objective Judgments Subjectively , 1989 .

[15]  G. Bodenhausen.  Stereotypic biases in social decision making and memory: testing process models of stereotype use. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  I. Ajzen.  Attitudes, Personality and Behavior , 1988 .

[17]  Franziska Marquart,et al.  Communication and persuasion : central and peripheral routes to attitude change , 1988 .

[18]  A. Tesser,et al.  Thought-induced attitude change: The effects of schema structure and commitment. , 1986 .

[19]  C. Anderson,et al.  Effects of Explanation and Counter-Explanation on the Development and Use of Social Theories. , 1986 .

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

[21]  Kathleen Holt,et al.  Maintaining Consistency between Self-Serving Beliefs and Available Data , 1985 .

[22]  A. Miller,et al.  The perseverance of beliefs: Conceptual perspectives and research developments. , 1984 .

[23]  M. Snyder.  When belief creates reality , 1984 .

[24]  M. Lepper,et al.  Considering the opposite: a corrective strategy for social judgment. , 1984, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[25]  J. Darley,et al.  A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects. , 1983 .

[26]  G. A. Miller,et al.  Book Review Nisbett, R. , & Ross, L.Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980. , 1982 .

[27]  S. Fiske,et al.  Social Psychology , 2019, Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.

[28]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches , 1981 .

[29]  L. Ross,et al.  Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. , 1981 .

[30]  S. Sherman,et al.  Attitude bolstering when behavior is inconsistent with central attitudes , 1980 .

[31]  L. Ross,et al.  Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence , 1979 .

[32]  Joel Cooper,et al.  Understanding Social Psychology , 1979 .

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

[34]  Christopher Leone,et al.  Cognitive schemas and thought as determinants of attitude change , 1977 .

[35]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. , 1977 .

[36]  George R. Goethals,et al.  The Perception of Consistency in Attitudes. , 1973 .

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