Attitude Representation Theory (ART) holds that attitude-relevant responses are informed by mental representations of the attitude object, which include the individual’s actions toward that object. Action Identification Theory (AIT) holds that the same action can be identified at multiple levels. Individuals who identify their actions at lower levels have less flexibility in how they perform the action, and thus enact the action less consistently. An integration of ART and AIT suggested that individuals who spontaneously (Experiment 1) or through manipulation (Experiments 2 and 3) identify their attitude-relevant actions toward a social group at lower levels might display less attitude-intention congruence than would individuals who identify their attitude-relevant actions at higher levels. ART and AIT are discussed as having links with each other and with other theories of attitude and judgment processes.
Abelson, R. P. (1995). Attitude extremity. In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 25-41). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2.
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
3.
Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In J. Kuhl & J. Beckman (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behavior (pp. 11-39). New York: Springer-Verlag.
4.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
5.
Armitage, C. J., & Conner, M. (2000). Attitudinal ambivalence: A test of three key hypotheses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1421-1432.
6.
Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 1-62). New York: Academic Press.
7.
Blessum, K. A., Lord, C. G., & Sia, T. L. (1998). Cognitive load and positive mood reduce typicality effects in attitude-behavior consistency. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 496-504.
8.
Bogardus, E. S. (1925). Measuring social distances. Journal of Applied Sociology, 9, 299-308.
9.
Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S. (2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
10.
Davis, B. P., & Knowles, E. S. (1999). A disrupt-then-reframe technique of social influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 192-199.
11.
Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. New York: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich.
12.
Eagly, A. H., Mladinic, A., & Otto, S. (1994). Cognitive and affective bases of attitudes toward social groups and social policies. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 113-137.
13.
Esses, V. M., Haddock, G., & Zanna, M. P. (1994). The role of mood in the expression of intergroup stereotypes. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Olson (Eds.), The psychology of prejudice: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 7, pp. 77-102). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
14.
Fazio, R. H. (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 95-109). New York: Academic Press.
15.
Fazio, R. H., & Zanna, M. P. (1981). Direct experience and attitude behavior consistency. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 14, pp. 161-202). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
16.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
17.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
18.
Gilovich, T. (1981). Seeing the past in the present: The effect of associations to familiar events on judgments and decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 797-808.
19.
Guttman, L. (1944). A basis for scaling qualitative data. American Sociological Review, 9, 139-150.
20.
Haddock, G., Rothman, A. J., Reber, R., & Schwarz, N. (1999). Forming judgments of attitude certainty, intensity, and importance: The role of subjective experiences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 771-782.
21.
Katz, D. (1960). The functional approach to the study of attitudes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 24, 163-204.
22.
Krosnick, J. A., & Petty, R. E. (1995). Attitude strength: An overview. In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 1-24). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
23.
Lord, C. G. (1982). Predicting behavioral consistency from an individual’s perception of situational similarities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 1076-1088.
24.
Lord, C.G., Desforges, D.M., Ramsey, S.L., Trezza, G.R., & Lepper, M. R. (1991). Typicality effects in attitude-behavior consistency: Effects of category discrimination and category knowledge. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 550-575.
25.
Lord, C. G., & Lepper, M. R. (1999). Attitude representation theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 31, pp. 265-343). New York: Academic Press.
26.
Lord, C. G., Lepper, M. R., & Mackie, D. (1984). Attitude prototypes as determinants of attitude-behavior consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 1254-1266.
27.
Maio, G. R., Bell, D. W., & Esses, V. M. (1996). Ambivalence in persuasion: The processing of messages about immigrant groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 513-536.
28.
Maio, G. R., & Olson, J. M. (2000). Why we evaluate: Functions of attitudes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
29.
McGuire, W. J., & McGuire, C. V. (1996). Enhancing self-esteem by directed-thinking tasks: Cognitive and affective positivity asymmetries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 117-1125.
30.
Millar, M. G., & Tesser, A. (1992). The role of beliefs and feelings in guiding behavior: The mismatch model. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 277-300). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
31.
Ouellette, J. A., & Wood, W. (1998). Habit and intention in everyday life: The multiple processes by which past behavior predicts future behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 54-74.
32.
Ross, M., McFarland, C., Conway, M., & Zanna, M. P. (1983). Reciprocal relation between attitudes and behavior recall: Committing people to newly formed attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 257-267.
33.
Salancik, G. R. (1982). Attitude-behavior consistencies as social logics. In M. P. Zanna, E. T. Higgins,&C. P. Herman (Eds.), Consistency in social behavior: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 2, pp. 51-73). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
34.
Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. P. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals and understanding: An inquiry into human knowledge structures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
35.
Schwarz, N., & Bless, H. (1992). Constructing reality and its alternatives: Assimilation and contrast effects in social judgments. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 217-245). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
36.
Schwarz, N., Groves, R. M., & Schuman, H. (1998). Survey methods. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 143-179). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
37.
Sia, T.L., Lord, C.G., Blessum, K.A., Ratclif, C.D., & Lepper, M.R. (1997). Is a rose always a rose? The role of social category exemplar change in attitude stability and attitude-behavior consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 501-514.
38.
Sia, T.L., Lord, C.G., Blessum, K.A., Thomas, J.C., & Lepper, M.R. (1999). Activation of exemplars in the process of assessing social category attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 517-532.
39.
Snyder, M. (1982). When believing means doing: Creating links between attitudes and behavior. In M. P. Zanna, E. T. Higgins,& C. P. Herman (Eds.). Consistency in social behavior: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 2, pp. 105-130). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
40.
Strack, F. (1992). The different routes to social judgments: Experiential versus informational strategies. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgment (pp. 249-275). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
41.
Tesser, A. (1978). Self-generated attitude change. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 11, pp. 289-338). San Diego: Academic Press.
42.
Thompson, M. M., Zanna, M. P., & Griffin, D. W. (1995). Let’s not be indifferent about (attitudinal) ambivalence. In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 361-386). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
43.
Tourangeau, R., & Rasinski, K. A. (1988). Cognitive processes underlying context effects in attitude measurement. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 299-314.
44.
Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1985). A theory of action identification. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
45.
Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1987). What do people think they’re doing? Action identification and human behavior. Psychological Review, 94, 3-15.
46.
Wallace, D. S., Paulson, R. M., Lord, C. G., & Bond, C. F., Jr. (2003). Which behaviors do attitudes predict? Meta-analyzing the effects of social pressure and perceived difficulty. Unpublished manuscript.
47.
Wegner, D. M., & Vallacher, R. R. (1986). Action identification. In R. M. Sorrrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition (pp. 550-582). New York: Guilford.
48.
Wegner, D. M., Vallacher, R. R., Kiersted, G. W., & Dizadji, D. (1986). Action identification in the emergence of social behavior. Social Cognition, 4, 18-38.
49.
Wilson, T. D., Dunn, D. S., Kraft, D., & Lisle, D. J. (1989). Introspection, attitude change, and attitude-behavior consistency: The disruptive effects of explaining why we feel the way we do. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 22, pp. 287-343). New York: Academic Press.
50.
Wilson, T. D., & Hodges, S. D. (1992). Attitudes as temporary constructions. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 37-65). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
