An examination into the construction and retrieval of evaluative judgments: A resolution of competing perspectives.

Abstract

There is disagreement in the current literature regarding the process by which evaluative judgments are made. One position suggests that stored attitudes are used to guide evaluative judgments. The other position suggests that evaluative judgments are constructed on the spot and thus relatively labile and sensitive to contextual influences. Considerable evidence exists supporting both perspectives. We advance the notion that both positions occur, albeit under different specifiable conditions. Specifically, we examined the influence of attitude strength as a potential theoretically informative moderator. We hypothesized that attitudes that have been thoughtfully formed or changed (i.e., strong) are more likely to be retrieved in a subsequent judgment situation and considered diagnostic, whereas attitudes that have been formed or changed as a result of relatively non-thoughtful processes (i.e., weak), are more likely to be inaccessible and constructed based upon information that happens to be accessible at the time the judgment is made. Three studies provide evidence that evaluative judgments associated with strong attitudes are less susceptible to contextual influence, in contrast to evaluative judgments associated with weak attitudes. Two further experiments demonstrate that this is not the result of chronic accessibility but rather the direct retrieval of an attitude, bereft of attribute information, thereby lending further support to the moderating influence exerted by attitude strength in determining the path to the formation of an evaluative judgment. In sum, the results of the five studies provide support for the role played by attitude strength in determining the likelihood of construction and retrieval of evaluative judgments. This research suggests a potential reconciliation of seemingly opposed views on attitudes.