PSYC13H3 Chapter 8.1: PSYC13H3 Chapter 8.: Week 8 Reading 1
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You should (cid:271)e a(cid:271)le to su(cid:373)(cid:373)arize fazio a(cid:374)d powell"s (cid:272)e(cid:374)tral argu(cid:373)e(cid:374)t about why attitudes are useful. It is because accessible attitudes ease decision making. Studies have indicated that attitudes provide a convenient basis for making a decision when the situation does not permit sufficient opportunity to consider the detail of the stimulus information carefully. Less effort is expended in making a decision when individuals have pre-existing attitudes towards the decision alternatives. The strength of object-evaluation associations can vary and the associative strength determines the likelihood that the attitude will be activated from memory automatically upon the individual"s e(cid:374)(cid:272)ou(cid:374)te(cid:396)i(cid:374)g the attitude o(cid:271)je(cid:272)t. Fazio and powell discuss the notion of attitude accessibility, and describe some previous research suggesting that attitude accessibility can make decision- making easier. You should be able to describe the study that they cite. The faster an individual can respond to a query about his or her attitude, the stronger the association.
