The disruptive effects of explaining attitudes: The moderating effect of knowledge about the attitude object

Abstract

Previous studies have found that asking people to explain the reasons for their attitudes can change these attitudes and lower attitude-behavior consistency. We found that people's knowledge about the attitude object moderates these effects. In a reanalysis of an earlier experiment, we found that analyzing reasons reduced the correlation between dating couples' attitudes toward each other and their break-up rates only for couples who had been dating for a relatively short period of time. In Study 1 analyzing reasons reduced the correlation between undergraduates' attitudes toward a political candidate and the number of fliers for that candidate they were willing to distribute only for those who were unknowledgeable about the candidate. In Study 2 analyzing reasons changed undergraduates' attitudes toward a set of political candidates only for those who were relatively unfamiliar with the candidates. Several possible reasons for the moderating effect of knowledge are discussed. © 1989.