Retrieval of Attitude-Relevant Information From Memory: Effects on Susceptibility to Persuasion and on Intrinsic Motivation

A distinction was drawn between (a) classic views of attitudes as stable dispositions based on beliefs and prior experiences accessed from memory and (b) the self-perception analysis of attitudes as relatively transitory responses dependent on current contextual cues. Access to relevant information in memory was assessed by the number of issue-related beliefs and prior experiences subjects could retrieve. To the extent that subjects could not retrieve information, they were expected to change their opinions to be consistent with new information and experiences concerning the attitude topic. In the first experiment, subjects read a counterattitudinal message. As expected, subjects with little access to beliefs and prior experiences, in comparison to those with greater access, changed their opinions to be more consistent with the message position. In the second experiment, subjects agreed to advocate a proattitudinal position for either a reward or no reward. As expected, subjects with access to little relevant information in memory inferred their attitudes from their decision to proselytize: Rewarded (vs. unrewarded) subjects explained their decision less in terms of their own belief in the advocated position and therefore inferred they were less in favor of this topic. In contrast, subjects who had greater access to information indicating that they were in favor of the stance taken in the message tended to attribute their decision to a belief in the topic, regardless of the presence or absence of the reward, and thus remained relatively favorable.