Values, Attitudes, and Behavior

Defining and measuring attitudes involves a bandwidth-fidelity tradeoff (Cronbach and Gleser, 1957). On one extreme are broad attitudes toward physical objects (Y osemite National Park, Tower of London), racial, ethnic, or other groups (Blacks, Muslims, gays), institutions (European Union, Catholic Church), social issues (abortion on demand, violence on TV), belief systems (Communism, religion), and other broadly defined targets. Latent disposition of this kind can be broadened further by assessing general values that may underlie attitudes toward general targets, such as freedom, equality, achievement, power, hedonism, conformity, and so forth. Broad bandwidth attitudes and values can predict a wide range of behaviors but they do so with relatively low fidelity, that is, low accuracy.