ATTITUDE ACCESSIBILITY AND MOTIVATION AS DETERMINANTS OF BIASED PROCESSING - A TEST OF THE MODE MODEL

The roles of attitude accessibility and motivation in the biased proce ssing of information were examined as a test of the MODE model. Subjec ts evaluated two studies with conflicting conclusions regarding capita l punishment's crime deterrence efficacy. Attitude accessibility was m anipulated by having subjects express their death penalty attitudes ei ther once (low accessibility) or repeatedly (high accessibility) durin g an initial phase of the experiment. Motivation was manipulated via f ear of invalidity; half the subjects were told their evaluations of th e capital punishment studies would be publicly compared to an expert p anel's conclusions. The relation between attitude and judgment was fou nd to depend on both attitude accessibility and motivation. Judgments were more attitudinally congruent in the low-fear-of-invalidity/repeat ed-expression condition than in the other conditions.