Desired Attitudes Guide Actual Attitude Change

Vaughan-Johnston, Thomas I.; Fabrigar, Leandre R.; Xia, Ji; DeMarree, Ken; Clark, Jason

Abstract

Whereas actual attitudes represent people's evaluations of specific objects as being good or bad, desired attitudes represent the attitude positions that people wish they held. Previous work has established that desired attitudes can have psychological consequences, but has not yet tested the extent to which desired attitudes can predict actual attitude change. In five datasets involving a variety of populations and procedural variations, we explored how political and moral factors motivate people to form desired attitudes distinct from their actual attitudes. These desired attitudes then predicted actual attitude change occurring after the formation of the desired attitudes, even though participants received no new information about the object. The present work demonstrates an additional value of the desired attitude construct: its ability to anticipate how people's attitudes will shift in the future.

Citation

Vaughan-Johnston, T. I., Fabrigar, L. R., Xia, J., DeMarree, K., & Clark, J. (2023). Desired Attitudes Guide Actual Attitude Change. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 105, Article 104437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104437

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 12, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Dec 24, 2022
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Dec 20, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 5, 2023
• Journal: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
• Print ISSN: 0022-1031
• Electronic ISSN: 1096-0465
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 105
• Article Number: 104437
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104437
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1186539