EFFECTS OF INTROSPECTING ABOUT REASONS - INFERRING ATTITUDES FROM ACCESSIBLE THOUGHTS

Previous research has shown that analyzing reasons can change people's attitudes, but the exact mechanisms of this effect have not been enti rely clear. It was hypothesized that introspecting about reasons focus es people's attention on thoughts that are accessible in memory and in creases the extent to which people view their accessible thoughts as a pplicable to their current attitudes. In Study 1, college students for med initial impressions of a target person, and then positive or negat ive thoughts about the target person were made memorable. After a dela y, half of the participants analyzed reasons for their attitude and ha lf recalled the target person's behaviors. As predicted, people who an alyzed reasons reported attitudes toward the target person that were b ased more on what they could recall about her. Study 2 showed that thi s effect occurs regardless of whether people initially form an online impression. Implications for the effects of analyzing reasons and for attitude formation are discussed.