Attitudes and Behavior

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Define attitude and describe its three components (ABC model: affective, behavioral, cognitive).
• Explain why attitudes don't always predict behavior, citing LaPiere's classic study.
• Compare cognitive dissonance theory, self-perception theory, and social learning theory as explanations of the attitude-behavior link.
• Describe the elaboration likelihood model's central and peripheral routes to persuasion.
• Apply attitude-change theories to real-world scenarios like advertising and health campaigns.
• Identify when attitudes are most likely to predict behavior (attitude strength, specificity, accessibility).

Quick Answer

An attitude is a learned evaluation — positive, negative, or mixed — toward a person, object, or idea, made up of what you think (cognitive), how you feel (affective), and how you're inclined to act (behavioral). Attitudes matter because they're assumed to drive behavior, but one of social psychology's most important findings is that the link between the two is much weaker and messier than common sense suggests: people frequently act against their stated attitudes because of social pressure, weak attitude strength, or situational constraints. Theories like cognitive dissonance (Festinger) and self-perception (Bem) explain not just how attitudes shape behavior, but how behavior can just as easily shape attitudes — a two-way street that has major implications for advertising, health campaigns, and persuasion generally.

Do Attitudes Really Predict Behavior?

If someone tells you they strongly value healthy eating, you'd probably bet they eat healthily. Common sense says attitudes drive behavior in a straight line. Social psychology's first big surprise on this topic is that the line is often crooked, or barely there at all.

Richard LaPiere demonstrated this dramatically in 1934. He traveled across the United States with a Chinese couple during a period of significant anti-Asian prejudice, visiting over 250 hotels and restaurants. They were refused service only once. Months later, LaPiere wrote to those same establishments asking, "Would you accept members of the Chinese race as guests?" More than 90% of those who replied said no. The stated attitude (refuse Chinese guests) directly contradicted the actual behavior (serve them without incident). LaPiere's study — despite methodological limitations researchers have since pointed out, like not knowing if the same staff member answered the letter — became the founding evidence that attitudes and behavior are not tightly coupled, and it launched decades of research into when and why they diverge.

The ABC Model of Attitudes

An attitude has three components, often remembered as the ABC model:

• Affective — the emotional reaction (how it makes you feel: liking, disliking, fear, excitement).
• Behavioral — the tendency to act in a way consistent with the attitude (past actions and behavioral intentions).
• Cognitive — the beliefs and knowledge you hold about the object (facts, assumptions, associations).

These three components aren't always aligned. You might cognitively know smoking is harmful, feel anxious about health risks (affective), yet continue smoking (behavioral) — a mismatch that is exactly what makes attitude-behavior research interesting rather than obvious.

When Do Attitudes Actually Predict Behavior?

Research since LaPiere has clarified the conditions under which the attitude-behavior link strengthens:

• Attitude specificity — a specific attitude ("I support the new recycling bin policy at my office") predicts specific behavior far better than a general attitude ("I care about the environment").
• Attitude strength and accessibility — attitudes that are strongly held and come to mind quickly and automatically are more predictive than weak or rarely considered ones.
• Social pressure and situational constraints — even a strong, specific attitude can be overridden by social norms or practical constraints, exactly as it was for LaPiere's hotel managers, who may have found refusing service face-to-face socially awkward even though they held prejudiced attitudes.

Three Theories Explaining the Attitude-Behavior Relationship

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Leon Festinger, 1957). Festinger proposed that holding two conflicting cognitions — or acting in a way that contradicts a held attitude — produces psychological discomfort ("dissonance"), which motivates people to reduce that discomfort, often by changing the attitude rather than the behavior (since behavior, especially past behavior, is harder to undo). In Festinger and Carlsmith's classic 1959 experiment, participants performed an extremely boring task and were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell the next participant it was interesting. Counterintuitively, the $1 group rated the task as more enjoyable afterward than the $20 group. With only $1 as justification for lying, dissonance was high, so participants resolved it by genuinely convincing themselves the task had been enjoyable; the $20 group had ample external justification for lying and felt little need to change their attitude.

Self-Perception Theory (Daryl Bem, 1972). Bem offered a rival explanation: rather than experiencing genuine discomfort, people simply infer their own attitudes by observing their own behavior, the same way they'd infer someone else's attitude by watching them — "I volunteer often, so I must be a caring person." This theory works best when attitudes were weak or ambiguous to begin with, since there's little to observe internally, so people rely on external behavioral evidence instead.

Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura). Bandura emphasized that attitudes and behaviors are also acquired by observing and imitating others, especially credible or rewarded models. His famous Bobo doll experiments showed that children who watched an adult behave aggressively toward an inflatable doll were significantly more likely to imitate that aggression later, even without being taught to do so directly. This theory explains attitude and behavior formation through observational learning rather than internal consistency-seeking.

Persuasion: Changing Attitudes on Purpose

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo) explains two different routes by which persuasive messages change attitudes:

• Central route — persuasion through careful, thoughtful evaluation of the actual arguments and evidence; produces attitude change that is stronger and longer-lasting, used when the audience is motivated and able to think it through.
• Peripheral route — persuasion through superficial cues like an attractive spokesperson, upbeat music, or the sheer number of arguments (not their quality); produces weaker, more temporary attitude change, used when the audience isn't motivated or able to engage deeply.

This is why a car advertisement featuring a celebrity spokesperson (peripheral route) works on a distracted viewer scrolling their phone, while a detailed consumer report comparing safety ratings (central route) works better on someone actively researching a major purchase.

Key Terms

Term	Definition
Attitude	A learned evaluation of an object, person, or idea, composed of affective, behavioral, and cognitive components
ABC model	Framework describing an attitude as Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive components
Attitude-behavior gap	The frequent mismatch between what people say they believe and how they actually act
Cognitive dissonance	Psychological discomfort from holding conflicting cognitions or acting against one's attitudes, motivating attitude or behavior change
Self-perception theory	The theory that people infer their own attitudes by observing their own behavior
Social learning theory	Bandura's theory that behaviors and attitudes are learned through observing and imitating others
Elaboration Likelihood Model	Petty and Cacioppo's model describing central (thoughtful) and peripheral (superficial) routes to persuasion
Attitude accessibility	How quickly and automatically an attitude comes to mind, which affects how strongly it predicts behavior

Common Mistakes

Misconception 1: "If you know someone's attitude, you can predict their behavior." Why it's wrong: LaPiere's study and decades of follow-up research show attitudes are often poor predictors of behavior, especially when the attitude is general rather than specific, weakly held, or overridden by social pressure. Correct understanding: attitudes predict behavior best when they are specific, strongly held, and accessible, and when situational pressures don't push in the opposite direction.

Misconception 2: "Cognitive dissonance theory and self-perception theory say the same thing." Why it's wrong: both predict attitude change follows behavior, but they disagree on the mechanism — dissonance theory requires genuine internal discomfort from holding conflicting cognitions, while self-perception theory requires no discomfort at all, just an inference process. Correct understanding: dissonance theory tends to explain attitude change best when the original attitude was strong and clearly contradicted; self-perception theory tends to explain it best when the original attitude was weak, vague, or uncertain.

Misconception 3: "More persuasive arguments always work better than emotional or superficial appeals." Why it's wrong: the effectiveness of an argument depends on the audience's motivation and ability to process it (the central vs. peripheral route), not on argument quality alone. Correct understanding: for an unmotivated or distracted audience, peripheral cues (attractiveness, credibility, repetition) can be just as or more persuasive than strong logical arguments, even though the resulting attitude change tends to be less durable.

Comparison and Connections

Theory	Core Mechanism	Requires Discomfort?	Best Explains
Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger)	Reducing discomfort from conflicting cognitions	Yes	Attitude change after acting against a strongly held attitude with weak justification
Self-Perception (Bem)	Inferring attitude from observing own behavior	No	Attitude formation when the original attitude was weak or ambiguous
Social Learning (Bandura)	Observing and imitating models	No	Acquiring new attitudes/behaviors from watching others, especially children
Elaboration Likelihood Model	Route of persuasive processing (central vs. peripheral)	N/A	Attitude change from external persuasive messages/advertising

Practice Questions

Recall

1. Name the three components of the ABC model of attitudes. Answer guidance: Affective (feelings), Behavioral (action tendencies), Cognitive (beliefs).
2. What did LaPiere's 1934 study find, and why was it significant? Answer guidance: Despite widespread prejudice reflected in written survey responses (over 90% said they would refuse service to a Chinese couple), the same establishments actually served the couple in person in nearly all cases — showing a major gap between stated attitudes and actual behavior.

Understanding

3. Explain why the $1 group in Festinger and Carlsmith's experiment rated the boring task as more enjoyable than the $20 group. Answer guidance: The $1 group had insufficient external justification for lying about the task being fun, creating high cognitive dissonance; to resolve the discomfort, they shifted their actual attitude toward believing the task was more enjoyable. The $20 group had ample justification for lying, so they felt little dissonance and needed no attitude change.
4. How does self-perception theory explain attitude formation differently from cognitive dissonance theory? Answer guidance: Self-perception theory proposes people infer their attitudes by observing their own behavior as an outside observer would, without any internal discomfort; dissonance theory requires an actual felt discomfort from contradiction that motivates a resolving attitude shift.

Application

5. A gym wants new members to actually attend regularly rather than canceling. Using attitude-behavior gap concepts, why might asking members to state a specific plan ("I will attend Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm") work better than a general goal ("I want to get fit")? Answer guidance: Specific, concrete attitudes/intentions predict behavior far better than vague, general ones, because they're more accessible and translate directly into an identifiable action, closing part of the attitude-behavior gap.
6. An anti-littering campaign uses a celebrity in its ads rather than detailed statistics about environmental harm. Which route of the Elaboration Likelihood Model is this using, and when would it be most effective? Answer guidance: The peripheral route, using the celebrity as a superficial persuasive cue rather than substantive argument; it's most effective on an audience with low motivation or ability to process detailed information, such as a general audience seeing a short ad rather than an already-engaged environmental audience.

Analysis

7. Why do critics argue LaPiere's original study cannot fully prove that attitudes don't predict behavior? Answer guidance: The study didn't confirm that the person who replied to the survey letter was the same staff member who served the couple in person, and the timing/context of each situation differed, so the "attitude" measured and the "behavior" observed may not have come from the same source or situation — a methodological limitation that later, more controlled studies had to address.
8. Compare cognitive dissonance theory and self-perception theory in terms of what kind of attitude they best explain, and explain why a single study can't always distinguish between them. Answer guidance: Dissonance theory best explains change in strong, well-defined attitudes that are clearly violated; self-perception theory best explains formation of weak or ambiguous attitudes. Many real-world attitude changes involve some mix of both discomfort and inference, and because both theories often predict the same outcome (attitude shifts toward matching behavior), it can be hard to tell which mechanism was actually responsible without additional measures like physiological arousal, which dissonance theory (but not self-perception theory) predicts should increase.

FAQ

If attitudes don't reliably predict behavior, why do psychologists still study them? Because attitudes do predict behavior under identifiable conditions (specificity, strength, accessibility, low situational pressure), and understanding those conditions is itself valuable for designing effective interventions, campaigns, and policies.

Is cognitive dissonance always resolved by changing the attitude? No — dissonance can also be resolved by changing the behavior, adding a new justifying cognition, or trivializing the importance of the inconsistency; attitude change is just one of several possible resolutions.

How is self-perception theory different from just "faking it till you make it"? They're closely related — self-perception theory is essentially the psychological mechanism behind that idea: by observing yourself repeatedly acting a certain way, you genuinely come to infer and adopt the corresponding attitude, rather than just pretending.

Why did the Bobo doll experiment matter for attitudes about aggression? It showed attitudes and behaviors toward aggression can be acquired purely through observation, without direct reinforcement of the child's own behavior, challenging theories that said learning requires personal reward or punishment.

Which route of persuasion is more effective, central or peripheral? Central-route persuasion produces more durable, resistant attitude change because it engages genuine reasoning, but peripheral-route persuasion can be just as effective in the short term, especially with an unmotivated or distracted audience — the "better" route depends on the audience and the message's goal.

Quick Revision

• Attitude = learned evaluation with three components (ABC: Affective, Behavioral, Cognitive).
• LaPiere's 1934 study showed a major gap between stated racial attitudes and actual serving behavior toward a Chinese couple.
• Attitudes predict behavior best when specific, strong, and accessible, and when social/situational pressure is low.
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger): conflicting cognitions cause discomfort, motivating attitude change — shown in the Festinger & Carlsmith $1 vs. $20 study.
• Self-Perception Theory (Bem): people infer attitudes from observing their own behavior, no discomfort required; works best for weak/ambiguous attitudes.
• Social Learning Theory (Bandura): attitudes/behaviors also learned by observing and imitating models — Bobo doll experiment.
• Elaboration Likelihood Model: central route (thoughtful, durable) vs. peripheral route (superficial cues, temporary) to persuasion.
• LaPiere's study has methodological limitations (unclear if same person surveyed and served the couple).
• Dissonance can be resolved by changing attitude, changing behavior, adding justification, or trivializing the conflict — not only by attitude change.
• Real-world use: advertising design, health campaigns, habit-formation strategies (specific intentions over vague goals).

Related Topics

Prerequisites: Introduction to Social Psychology, Social Perception and Cognition.

Related Topics: Social Influence and Persuasion, Learning Theories (Behaviorism unit).

Next Topics: Group Dynamics, Social Influence and Persuasion.