Aging and susceptibility to attitude change.
Abstract
Two hypotheses about the relation between age and susceptibility to attitude change were tested. The impressionable years hypothesis proposes that individuals are highly susceptible to attitude change during late adolescence and early adulthood and that susceptibility drops precipitously immediately thereafter and remains low throughout the rest of the life cycle. The increasing persistence hypothesis proposes that people become gradually more resistant to change throughout their lives. Structural equation models were applied to data from the 1956-1960, 1972-1976, and 1980 National Election Panel Studies in order to estimate the stability of political attitudes and unreliability in measures of them. The results support the impressionable years hypothesis and disconfirm the increasing persistence hypothesis. A decrease in the over-time consistency of attitude reports among 66- to 83-year-olds was found to be due to increased random measurement error in their reports, not to increased attitude change.
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Civic beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral patterns formed in adolescence and young adulthood tend to remain relatively stable in middle adulthood and later.
“Civic beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral patterns formed at this age tend to remain relatively stable in middle adulthood and later (Krosnick & Alwin, 1989 ; Vollenbergh et al., 2001 ).”
From The Effect of Civic Engagement on Different Dimensions of Well-Being in Youth: A Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as Krosnick & Alwin, 1989
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- Authors
- Krosnick, J. A., & Alwin, D. F.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- ORCID
- Krosnick, Jon A.
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 1989
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 416-425
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W4229679722
- Cited by
- 723
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 78 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 44 · 2019: 50 · 2018: 48 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 17.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01ag004743-09)
- National Institute on Aging (2-R01-AG04743-03)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Psychology of Social Influence
- Keywords
- aging, attitude change, susceptibility to persuasion, older adults, cognitive aging, social influence
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Attitude, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Mental Recall
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