ATTITUDE STRENGTH - ONE CONSTRUCT OR MANY RELATED CONSTRUCTS

A variety of attributes differentiate attitudes that are stable and co nsequential from those that are not, including extremity, certainty, i mportance, knowledge, intensity, interest, direct experience, accessib ility, latitudes of rejection and noncommitment, and affective-cogniti ve consistency. Although these dimensions are clearly conceptually and operationally distinct from one another, researchers have often assum ed that some are interchangeable, or that two or more reflect common h igher-order constructs. Three studies using multitrait-multimethod con firmatory factor analysis assessed the relations among these dimension s. Although some of these dimensions are strongly related, most are no t, and a multifactor model seems necessary to account for their interc orrelations. Thus, it seems most sensible to think of all of these dim ensions as distinct rather than as multiple manifestations of a smalle r set of underlying attributes.