Attitude and selective learning: where are the phenomena of yesteryear?

In 3 experiments, Ss' attitudes on United States involvement in Vietnam were not found to affect learning of relevant propagandistic information. This was true (a) for measures of incidental as well as of intentional learning, and (b) for Ss aware that they were selected on the basis of their preexisting attitudes as well as for those who were unaware. Further, no reliable relationship between judged prior familiarity with information and subsequent learning was obtained. However, statements unsympathetic to United States involvement in Vietnam, a category with which Ss were relatively unfamiliar, were reliably better learned than those supporting involvement. This finding, together with supplementary novelty ratings on the experimental information, led to the conclusion that information novelty may enhance learning of propagandisti c information. The conclusion that attitude plays an important role in the learning and retention of attitude-relevant information received its best-known support in the study by Levine and Murphy (1943). Working with pro- and anti-Communist subjects and pro- and antiCommunist information, they concluded that "... an individual notes and remembers material which supports his social attitudes better than material which conflicts with these attitudes [p. SIS]." Subsequently, using the racial segregation issue, Jones and Aneshansel (19S6) and Jones and Kohler (1958) corroborated this finding of selective learning of acceptable information. While the JonesAneshansel and Jones-Kohler studies also demonstrated special conditions under which the selective learning finding was reversed, their support of the original Levine-Murphy result seemed to establish unequivocally that attitudes play a screening role in the learning process. Such a conclusion was highly congenial with findings demonstrating selective perception as a function of attitude (e.g., Postman, Bruner, & McGinnies, 1948).