A Theoretical note on the differences between attitudes, opinions, and values

Abstract

This theoretical note examines the concepts attitude, opinion, and value. It is argued that such acquired behavioral pre-dispositions are re-lated but have different conceptual foci and tend to address different phenomena. Although it is important to recognize their interconnected-ness, their indiscriminate use is likely to lead to messy theoretical ar-guments and misleading interpretations of empirical findings. This ar-ticle discusses key-aspects that need to be considered in the study of at-titudes, opinions, and values, as well as the relations between these. © 1998 The Swiss Political Science Review.