Abstract
The moderating role of affective-cognitive consistency in the effects of affectively-based and cognitively-based attitudes on consummatory and instrumental behaviors was explored using two experimental studies in the intergroup context. Study 1 revealed that affectively-based attitudes were better predictors than cognitively-based attitudes regardless of affective-cognitive consistency for consummatory behaviors (e.g., undergraduates’ supportive behaviors toward government officials). Study 2, which investigated task groups’ supportive behaviors toward an immediate supervisory group, found that for these instrumental behaviors cognitively-based attitudes were better predictors than affectively-based attitudes only when affective-cognitive consistency was high. The present research also examined the mechanism by which affective-cognitive consistency moderates the relative roles of affectively-based and cognitively-based attitudes in attitude-behavior consistency. Results indicated that attitude-behavior consistency is eroded primarily because of the weaker relationship of affective or cognitive components to behaviors than to general attitudes. The reciprocal implications of research on attitudes and work on intergroup relations are considered.
Highlights
Over the past seventy-five years, the study of intergroup relations has been one of the most active areas of social psychological research [1]
Analyses testing whether there was an effect of the six different orders of presentation of materials revealed that the orders with which responses to teachers, doctors, and government officials were assessed did not influence the affective components of attitudes, F(5, 34) = 1.06, p = .40, cognitive components of attitudes, F(5, 34) = 1.26, p = .30, general attitudes, F(5, 34) = 0.39, p = .85, and supportive behaviors, F(5, 34) = 1.34, p = .27, toward government officials
The primary objective of the current study was to examine the interaction between attitude base and affective-cognitive consistency on the attitude-behavior relation for intergroup consummatory behaviors
Summary
Over the past seventy-five years, the study of intergroup relations has been one of the most active areas of social psychological research [1]. A substantial portion of that research has emphasized intergroup attitudes and ways to change them [2] These attitudes only modestly predict discriminatory behaviors (meta-analytic r = 0.32 [3]; see 4). Research on attitudes more generally has further emphasized the importance of considering the multicomponential nature of the attitudes – including affective, cognitive, and behavioral predisposition aspects – for understanding how attitudes guide behaviors [5,6]. Attitude base, which refers to the relative weight of affect versus cognition in general attitudes [16,17], has been shown in previous research to be an important moderator of attitudebehavior consistency outside the domain of intergroup relations [18,19]. Whether more affectively-based or cognitively-based attitudes are better predictors of behaviors depends on the nature of the behaviors in question
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