Strength without Elaboration: The Role of Implicit Self-Theories in Forming and Accessing Attitudes

A consistent finding in the attitude literature is that strong attitudes are products of effortful cognitive elaboration (Petty and Cacioppo 1984; Petty and Wegener 1999). The current research extends this by incorporating the construct of implicit self-theory. Specifically, it finds that that individuals who believe in fixed traits of personality (entity theorists) form strong attitudes without effortful cognitive elaboration. They form attitudes more quickly and with less effort but hold these attitudes more strongly than incremental theorists, whereas those who believe in malleable traits (incremental theorists) can form strong attitudes only with a high level of elaboration. The current research suggests that effortful cognitive elaboration is a sufficient but not necessary condition for attitude strength. The underlying mechanism for this strength without elaboration effect is also traced.