Attitudes Key Readings: Their Structure, Function, and Consequences

The study of likes and dislikes - what social psychologists refer to as "attitudes" - has been a central focus of the field for decades. What are attitudes? How can we study and measure them scientifically? How are they formed and changed? Of what functional value, if any, are they? How do they come to influence our attention, perception, judgments, and behavior? These are among the questions that have spurred social psychological research on attitudes, and they are among the issues addressed in this volume.

The articles reprinted in this collection represent noteworthy developments in the field's understanding of attitudes. Together, the readings provide a representative and broad coverage of the literature, illustrating well what the field has come to learn about the structure, function, and consequences of attitudes.

Russell H. Fazio received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1978. He is currently the Harold E. Burtt Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University. Fazio’s program of research focuses upon attitudes, their formation, accessibility from memory, functional value, and the processes by which they influence attention, judgment, and behavior. He served as editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology from 1999 to 2003. He has received numerous honors, including the APA Early Career Award (1983) and the Thomas M. Ostrom Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Cognition (2006).

Richard E. Petty received his B.A. (with high distinction) from the University of Virginia in 1973, and his Ph.D. in social psychology from Ohio State University in 1977. He is currently Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University. Petty’s work focuses on attitudes, persuasion, and social cognition. He is former editor of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and author of seven books and over 200 journal articles and chapters. He has received various honors including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2001) and the Society for Consumer Psychology (2000).