Is a rose always a rose? The role of social category exemplar change in attitude stability and attitude-behavior consistency.

Abstract

Three experiments tested whether changes in social category exemplars affect attitude stability, attitude-behavior consistency, or attitude change. In Experiment l, participants displayed greater attitude stability across 1 month, in several social categories, when they named the same rather than different exemplars. In Experiment 2, participants displayed greater attitude-behavior consistency toward each of 2 social categories when they named the same rather than different exemplars at behavior assessment and at attitude assessment. Participants who named a more likable exemplar behaved more positively, and those who named a less likable exemplar behaved more negatively, than their initial attitudes predicted. In Experiment 3, participants changed their attitudes in the predicted direction after estimating the height of an exemplar who was either more or less likable than the one they had earlier named. The results are interpreted as consistent with recent theory and research on attitude introspection, the matching hypothesis, and models of social judgment. According to Gertrude Stein's famous dictum, A rose is a rose is a rose. When it comes to attitude-behavio r consistency toward social categories such as politicians, gay men and lesbians, televangelists, talk show hosts, foreign leaders, and rock musicians, however, both classic and current studies have suggested that life is not always so simple. The present study asked whether attitudes toward social categories fluctuate across time and situation depending on which category member (exemplar) comes to mind; whether attitude-behavio r consistency is greater when the same, rather than a different, category exemplar comes to mind at the time behavior is assessed as at the time attitude was assessed; whether it is possible from knowing whether a more positive or more negative exemplar came to mind to predict the direction of attitude-behavio r inconsistency; and whether the exemplar that comes to mind changes attitudes. As early as 1934, Richard LaPiere suggested that attitudebehavior consistency might depend in part on how a social category is represented. LaPiere toured the southwestern United States with a Chinese couple at a time when the media were reporting intense anti-Oriental attitudes. To LaPiere's surprise, his Chinese friends were served courteously at all but 1 of 251 restaurants and hotels. Subsequently, LaPiere sent an attitude questionnaire to the proprietors of these and other establishments. Of the respondents, including those at 128 of the places that LaPiere and his friends had visited, more than 90% said they had such negative attitudes that they would refuse to serve members of the Chinese race. In commenting on this striking