The Psychology of Attitudes, Motivation, and Persuasion

This chapter covers attitudes in relation to beliefs, intentions, behaviors and goals, and also discusses the influence of various processes of attitude formation and change, including persuasive communications. Attitudes are defined as “evaluations”. Concepts covered in the Handbook are introduced, including implicit and explicit attitudes, specific and general attitudes, the origins of attitudes, and persuasion. Having direct experience with an attitude object is perhaps the most basic, and obvious, way to form attitudes. Mere exposure, evaluative conditioning, and belief formation are also important attitude bases covered in this chapter.