A history of attitudes and persuasion research

For the most part, the history of the field of attitudes and persuasion parallels the history of social psychology itself. There are at least two reasons for this. First, the attitude concept was a central and dominant one in social psychology from its inception. Second, because the concept of attitudes was so fundamental (basic) to so many social psychological phenomena, theories regarding attitudes and their formation and change have served as the building blocks for numerous other t-apics in the field ranging from prejudice to relationships. Although the absolute hegemony of this topic has risen and fallen over time in a cyclic way, as we will document in this chapter, in every decade over the past 100 years there has been at least one core idea or theory that has not only influenced researchers of attitudes, but social psychologists more generally. We present the history of attitudes as the history of the key schools, people, topics and ideas that have permeated the field, with a focus on those contributing to basic research and theory within social psychology. Thus, we do not cover the linked developments in the numerous areas of application ofbasic attitudes research such as in the domains of prejudice, consumer, health, and political psychology, and many others. We begin by providing a general overview of the roots of the attitude concept itself Next, we describe the work on attitudes and persuasion within broad traditions located at particularly influential universities. We cover core ideas regarding attitude measurement, attitude-behavior relationships, and especially attitude change as they were developed in the places where a group of key researchers concentrated their efforts, including Yale, Stanford, Illinois and Ohio State. ln the second part of the chapter, we more briefly describe additional ideas regarding each of these major topics presented in chronological order so that it is easier to see how researchers have built on related contributions. This also allows us an opportunity to present some important ideas that were not originated in the four main centers of attitude research.