van Giesen Roxanne I, Fischer Arnout R H, van Dijk Heleen, van Trijp Hans C M
Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2015 Oct 30;10(10):e0141790. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141790. eCollection 2015.
At large attitudes are built on earlier experience with the attitude object. If earlier experiences are not available, as is the case for unfamiliar attitude objects such as new technologies, no stored evaluations exist. Yet, people are still somehow able to construct attitudes on the spot. Depending on the familiarity of the attitude object, attitudes may find their basis more in affect or cognition. The current paper investigates differences in reliance on affect or cognition in attitude formation toward familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. In addition, individual differences in reliance on affect (high faith in intuition) or cognition (high need for cognition) are taken into account. In an experimental survey among Dutch consumers (N = 1870), we show that, for unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, people rely more on affect than cognition. For familiar attitude objects where both affective and cognitive evaluations are available, high need for cognition leads to more reliance on cognition, and high faith in intuition leads to more reliance on affect, reflecting the influence of individually preferred thinking style. For people with high need for cognition, cognition has a higher influence on overall attitude for both familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. On the other hand, affect is important for people with high faith in intuition for both familiar and unfamiliar attitude objects and for people with low faith in intuition for unfamiliar attitude objects; this shows that preferred thinking style is less influential for unfamiliar objects. By comparing attitude formation for familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, this research contributes to understanding situations in which affect or cognition is the better predictor of overall attitudes.
总体而言，态度是建立在对态度对象的早期体验之上的。如果没有早期体验，比如对于新技术等不熟悉的态度对象，就不存在存储的评价。然而，人们仍然能够在当下构建态度。根据态度对象的熟悉程度，态度可能更多地基于情感或认知。本文研究了在形成对熟悉和不熟悉的现实态度对象的态度时，对情感或认知依赖程度的差异。此外，还考虑了在对情感（高度相信直觉）或认知（高度需要认知）依赖方面的个体差异。在一项针对荷兰消费者的实验性调查（N = 1870）中，我们发现，对于不熟悉的现实态度对象，人们更多地依赖情感而非认知。对于既有情感评价又有认知评价的熟悉态度对象，高度需要认知会导致更多地依赖认知，而高度相信直觉则会导致更多地依赖情感，这反映了个体偏好的思维方式的影响。对于高度需要认知的人来说，认知对熟悉和不熟悉的现实态度对象的总体态度都有更高的影响。另一方面，情感对于高度相信直觉的人在熟悉和不熟悉的态度对象上以及对于高度不相信直觉的人在不熟悉的态度对象上都很重要；这表明偏好的思维方式对不熟悉的对象影响较小。通过比较对熟悉和不熟悉的现实态度对象的态度形成过程，本研究有助于理解情感或认知在何种情况下是总体态度的更好预测指标。
