The interplay of affect and cognition in attitude formation and change.

Abstract

Two experiments examined the hypothesis that the sequence of affect and cognition in an attitude's formation is an important determinant of its subsequent resistance to affective and cognitive means of persuasion. Affect-based and cognition-based attitudes were induced and subsequently chal-lenged by either affective or cognitive means of persuasion. The procedure used to create the 2 types of attitudes and the means of persuasion involved varying the sequence of affect and cogni-tion while holding the content of communications constant. As predicted, affect-based attitudes exhibited more change under affective means of persuasion than under cognitive means of persua-sion. Cognition-based attitudes, on the other hand, exhibited equal change under both forms of persuasion. The interaction between attitude type and means of persuasion emerged both when affect was manipulated subliminally (Experiment 1) and when affect was manipulated supralimi-nally (Experiment 2). Moreover, in the 2nd experiment, affect-based attitudes were expressed with greater confidence than their cognition-based counterparts. Together, these findings underscore the theoretical as well as practical importance of distinguishing between affect- and cognition-based attitudes and, more generally, the need for influence attempts to make contact with an attitude's origin.

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