Page 181 - The Social Animal

Social Cognition 163

Not all attitudes and beliefs are highly accessible. For example,
we may have opinions on Puerto Rican statehood or the value of ad-
vertising, but for most of us, these opinions do not readily come to
mind. Sometimes we have no real attitude; that is, no evaluation of
the object stored in memory. Nevertheless, we might venture an
opinion if asked. For example, survey researchers find that respon-
dents are capable of giving their opinion about made-up issues, such
as a phony piece of legislation or foreign aid to a nonexistent coun-
try. In these latter two cases, our less accessible attitudes and nonat-
titudes are not likely to guide behavior.
How does attitude accessibility influence behavior? According to
Fazio, attitudes are used to interpret and perceive an object selec-
tively and to make sense of a complex situation. We have seen pre-
viously how attitudes can influence cognitive processing; an attitude
serves as a heuristic to influence our interpretations, explanations,
reasoning, and judgment of a situation. But any given attitude is only
one of many factors that can be used to make sense of a situation.
For example, to make sense of a complex situation, we may use the
objective features of the situation, or what other people say about it,
or our general attitude about similar situations. When an attitude is
highly accessible, it is more likely to be the major thing we use for
defining a situation. In those situations, we will act on the basis of
that attitude.
There is considerable evidence to support the proposition that
highly accessible attitudes guide behavior. One measure of attitude
accessibility is the speed with which an individual can provide an eval-
uative response of an object or issue. Using this simple measure, Rus-
sell Fazio and Carol Williams were able to make extraordinarily
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accurate predictions of who would vote for either Ronald Reagan or
Walter Mondale in the presidential election of 1984. About 5 months
before the election, Fazio and Williams took a microcomputer to a
local shopping mall and asked passersby to give their opinions about
various issues, including an evaluation of each of the two presidential
candidates. The computer recorded the speed with which they evalu-
ated the presidential candidates. This was their measure of attitude
accessibility. Later, Fazio and Williams contacted the subjects and
asked them about their perceptions of two presidential debates. After
the election, they asked for whom they had voted.The results showed
that those individuals with highly accessible attitudes (fast responses)