A researcher finds that people who score high on an environmental attitudes survey rarely change their personal behavior to reduce carbon footprints. Which explanation from attitude research best accounts for this gap?
ATheir attitudes must be weakly held, since strongly held attitudes always produce corresponding behavior
BExplicit attitudes always override situational factors once formed
CAttitude-behavior gaps occur when situational pressures — cost, convenience, social norms — outweigh attitude-based motivation, especially for abstract or weakly specific attitudes
DSurveys measure opinions, not attitudes, and opinions never predict behavior
The attitude-behavior gap is well-documented (LaPiere's classic study showed this decades ago). Attitudes predict behavior best when they are strong, specific, directly relevant to the behavior, and formed through direct experience. Broad, abstract attitudes (e.g., 'I care about the environment') are poor predictors of specific behaviors (e.g., 'I will insulate my attic') because situational factors — cost, inconvenience, competing social norms — often win out. Attitude strength and specificity are essential moderators.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
A person smells durian for the first time and has an immediate, strong negative reaction before forming any deliberate thoughts about it. Which component of the ABC model was activated first, and through which formation mechanism?
ACognitive — they processed the smell and concluded it was unpleasant
BBehavioral — they had previously avoided similar foods and extended that pattern
CAffective — a direct sensory stimulus activated an emotional reaction before any deliberate evaluation
DAll three components activated simultaneously, as the ABC model describes
The affective component — the gut-level emotional reaction — can be triggered directly by sensory stimuli without any cognitive evaluation first. This is an example of attitude formation through direct sensory experience: the stimulus bypasses deliberate cognition and produces an immediate evaluative response. The cognitive component (articulated reasons) may follow, but the affective reaction came first and shaped it.
Question 3 True / False
A person can hold a strong attitude toward something they have never personally encountered, formed through observational learning from parents, peers, or media.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
Observational learning is a recognized mechanism of attitude formation. Children absorb the evaluative responses of significant others — seeing a parent's disgust reaction, hearing consistent evaluations from peers, watching media representations — and form attitudes toward objects they have never directly encountered. These observationally-formed attitudes can be quite strong and shape behavior just as attitudes from direct experience do.
Question 4 True / False
If someone clearly articulates their belief that a policy is effective and fair, they necessarily hold a positive attitude toward that policy.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Holding a belief is the cognitive component of the ABC model, but an attitude requires an evaluative dimension — and all three components do not have to point in the same direction. A person might cognitively believe a policy is effective while having a strong negative affective reaction to its implementation or the people associated with it. Additionally, implicit attitudes (measured by reaction time, not self-report) can conflict with explicit ones: someone may explicitly endorse a position while showing an implicit negative association on an IAT.
Question 5 Short Answer
Why might implicit attitudes predict behavior better than explicit attitudes in some situations, and when do explicit attitudes take over?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Implicit attitudes are automatic and operate below awareness — they drive behavior in situations requiring quick, unreflective responses where there is little time or motivation for deliberate thought (snap judgments, stressed conditions, low-stakes interactions). Explicit attitudes, which are conscious and deliberate, are better predictors when the person has time, motivation, and capacity to reflect on their response and exercise self-control. The two systems can conflict: someone with an explicit egalitarian attitude and an implicit bias may act on the bias in a rushed situation but override it when reflecting carefully.
This dual-process logic has practical implications for bias and prejudice: simply asking people to report their attitudes may miss the automatic evaluations that drive behavior in many real-world contexts. The IAT was designed to measure this implicit layer.