Why Follow the Leader? Attitude Formation Processes and Attitude Strength

• In Event: Social Groups, Social Identities, and Politics

Abstract

Attitudes towards people and social groups exert more influence on Americans' political decisions than do attitudes towards political issues. We argue that this is explained by features of the attitude formation process. Using observational and experimental evidence, we demonstrate that variation in individual- and target-level characteristics affects attitude strength by inducing variation in the attitude formation process. An implication is that entities like people and groups are much more likely to be the target of processes that result in strong and influential attitudes. This accounts for the finding that people are more likely to change their positions on policies based on their attitudes towards individuals than the other way around (Lenz 2013). A theory accounting for these differences in attitudes—processing in a memory-based versus on-line fashion—is discussed.

Authors

• Elizabeth Mitchell, University of California, Berkeley

• Casey C Ste. Claire, University of California, Berkeley