The structure of attitudes: Attribute importance, accessibility and judgment

Two studies related attribute importance to accessibility and speed of judg ment. Attitudes were assessed by a direct attitude measure and a modal set of 15 attributes. Attributes were rated in terms of their probability; and desirability. Subsequently, participant were required to select the five at tributes the) considered to be most important. Results of Study 1 (dealing with attitudes towards condom use) show that individually selected, importa nt attributes are more easily retrieved and judged faster than non-selected , less important attributes. Judging attributes took less time than evaluat ing one's overall attitude, suggesting a bottom-up process in which the var ious attributes are combined to form an overall attitude. Study 2 (dealing with attitudes towards smoking) extends these findings and also addresses t he stability of attitude structure. important attributes were again associa ted with reduced response times, and attribute-related judgments took less rime than judging one's overall attitude, Accessibility of important attrib utes remained stable over time as indicated by the results of a lexical dec ision task one week later. Finally, important attributes were also recalled better than less important attributes. implications for research on attitu de structure are discussed.