Effects of Analyzing Reasons on Attitude Change: The Moderating Role of Attitude Accessibility

This study examined the moderating effect of attitude accessibility on attitude change resulting from explaining the reasons for one's attitude. We assessed people's attitudes toward Ronald Reagan on two occasions, several weeks apart. Analyzing reasons at Time 2 resulted in attitude inconsistency across the two occasions for subjects with relatively inaccessible attitudes, but did not affect consistency for subjects with accessible attitudes. All subjects generated reasons that were somewhat inconsistent with their Time 1 attitudes, but only people with inaccessible attitudes based their Time 2 attitudes on these reasons. We argue that people with accessible attitudes are less likely to base their attitudes on temporarily salient thoughts about the attitude object.