. , . ' local and Global Evaluations Attitudes as Self - Regulatory Guides for Near and Distant Responding ALISON

Although we often think of OUt attitudes and beliefs as inherent and enduring aspects of ourselves, we also find that the y fail to guide us in man y everyday social situations. At times, we act in accordance with OU f core values and ideals. Often, however, our behavior seems to be far more strongly shaped by the particularities of the Cutrent context. Building on a wea lth of past research that has exa mined issues related to eva luative consistency and inconsistency, thi s cha pter examines the question of when a nd why eva luative responses mig ht be more or less consistent across contexts from a self-regulatory perspec t ive. Specifically, we propose that evaluations ca n serve as selfregulatory guides for act ion eithe r within the current contex t or outs ide of it. Whereas flexible action guides that incor porate local detail s in the curre nt contex t tend to be useful for respond ing appropriately to proxima l objects, consistent action guides th at globa lly gene ralize across contex ts are more useful for respo ndi ng to distant objects. From this perspective, cues about d istance should fun ctionally influence the extent to wh ich evaluative responses fluctuate or remain consistent across different con texts. This issue is importa nt for understanding self-control, since local and globa l eva luations may have conflict ing action implications, an d dista nce may therefore playa key role in reso lving such self-control d ilemmas. More broadl y, Out goa l in thi s chapter is to form a bridge between the literatures on attitudes and self-regulation to improve Out und erstand ing of how these of ten sepa rate fields of research can each elucidate the other. We begin by briefly reviewing some of the ways that attitudes have been assumed to promote consistency or flexibility in the literature, an d then describe why evaluative flexibilit y, as well as consistency, migh t be functi onal from a self-regulato ry perspect ive.