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Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects

At large attitudes are built on earlier experience with the attitude object. If earlier experiences are not available, as is the case for unfamiliar attitude objects such as new technologies, no stored evaluations exist. Yet, people are still somehow able to construct attitudes on the spot. Dependin...

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Autores principales: van Giesen, Roxanne I., Fischer, Arnout R. H., van Dijk, Heleen, van Trijp, Hans C. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4627771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26517876
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141790
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author van Giesen, Roxanne I.
Fischer, Arnout R. H.
van Dijk, Heleen
van Trijp, Hans C. M.
author_facet van Giesen, Roxanne I.
Fischer, Arnout R. H.
van Dijk, Heleen
van Trijp, Hans C. M.
author_sort van Giesen, Roxanne I.
collection PubMed
description At large attitudes are built on earlier experience with the attitude object. If earlier experiences are not available, as is the case for unfamiliar attitude objects such as new technologies, no stored evaluations exist. Yet, people are still somehow able to construct attitudes on the spot. Depending on the familiarity of the attitude object, attitudes may find their basis more in affect or cognition. The current paper investigates differences in reliance on affect or cognition in attitude formation toward familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. In addition, individual differences in reliance on affect (high faith in intuition) or cognition (high need for cognition) are taken into account. In an experimental survey among Dutch consumers (N = 1870), we show that, for unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, people rely more on affect than cognition. For familiar attitude objects where both affective and cognitive evaluations are available, high need for cognition leads to more reliance on cognition, and high faith in intuition leads to more reliance on affect, reflecting the influence of individually preferred thinking style. For people with high need for cognition, cognition has a higher influence on overall attitude for both familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. On the other hand, affect is important for people with high faith in intuition for both familiar and unfamiliar attitude objects and for people with low faith in intuition for unfamiliar attitude objects; this shows that preferred thinking style is less influential for unfamiliar objects. By comparing attitude formation for familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, this research contributes to understanding situations in which affect or cognition is the better predictor of overall attitudes.
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spelling pubmed-46277712015-11-06 Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects van Giesen, Roxanne I. Fischer, Arnout R. H. van Dijk, Heleen van Trijp, Hans C. M. PLoS One Research Article At large attitudes are built on earlier experience with the attitude object. If earlier experiences are not available, as is the case for unfamiliar attitude objects such as new technologies, no stored evaluations exist. Yet, people are still somehow able to construct attitudes on the spot. Depending on the familiarity of the attitude object, attitudes may find their basis more in affect or cognition. The current paper investigates differences in reliance on affect or cognition in attitude formation toward familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. In addition, individual differences in reliance on affect (high faith in intuition) or cognition (high need for cognition) are taken into account. In an experimental survey among Dutch consumers (N = 1870), we show that, for unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, people rely more on affect than cognition. For familiar attitude objects where both affective and cognitive evaluations are available, high need for cognition leads to more reliance on cognition, and high faith in intuition leads to more reliance on affect, reflecting the influence of individually preferred thinking style. For people with high need for cognition, cognition has a higher influence on overall attitude for both familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. On the other hand, affect is important for people with high faith in intuition for both familiar and unfamiliar attitude objects and for people with low faith in intuition for unfamiliar attitude objects; this shows that preferred thinking style is less influential for unfamiliar objects. By comparing attitude formation for familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, this research contributes to understanding situations in which affect or cognition is the better predictor of overall attitudes. Public Library of Science 2015-10-30 /pmc/articles/PMC4627771/ /pubmed/26517876 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141790 Text en © 2015 van Giesen et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
van Giesen, Roxanne I.
Fischer, Arnout R. H.
van Dijk, Heleen
van Trijp, Hans C. M.
Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects
title Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects
title_full Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects
title_fullStr Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects
title_full_unstemmed Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects
title_short Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects
title_sort affect and cognition in attitude formation toward familiar and unfamiliar attitude objects
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4627771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26517876
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141790
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