Lateral Attitude Change

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gerd Bohner, since 7/2018
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 282465074

Consider two, at first glance rather different, research findings: (1) Friendly contact with members of an outgroup, for example, immigrants, does not only improve attitudes toward this particular group, but also attitudes toward other stigmatized outgroups, such as gay men (Pettigrew, 2009). (2) Members of the majority who are exposed to a minority's arguments regarding a particular topic, do not change their attitudes toward this topic, but instead change their attitudes toward a different, related issue (Alvaro & Crano, 1997). These findings have one thing in common: The attempt to influence a person's attitude toward an object X results in the change of their attitude toward other objects (Y) that are mentally related to X. Such "side effects" of influence attempts will be called lateral attitude change (LAC). The systematic study of LAC is the purpose of this research project. We define LAC as given whenever a person changes her or his implicit or explicit evaluation of a lateral object Y after an influence attempt directed at a focal object X. We distinguish two types of LAC, which are illustrated by the above-cited findings: generalization effects, where the target of an influence attempt accepts the new evaluation of X, and displacement effects, where the target rejects the new evaluation of X. We propose that, in both cases, the evaluation of X that is suggested by the influence attempt will automatically be transferred to other, related objects Y. The differential patterns of generalization and displacement will thus be found mainly in explicit attitudes, whereas an automatic spreading of the associative evaluation of X on Y is commonly found on the level of implicit attitudes. We have presented the theoretical foundations of our research proposal in a framework on LAC, published in the forthcoming issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review (Glaser, Dickel, Liersch, Rees, Süssenbach & Bohner, 2015). The LAC framework contains six postulates: 1. Activation of evaluation of focal object X; 2. automatic spread of this evaluation to lateral objects Y; 3. conscious acceptance or rejection of the evaluation of X; 4. resulting conscious processes with regard to Y; 5. conscious acceptance or rejection of the evaluation of Y; 6. delayed attitude change toward X and/or Y when reasons for initial rejection become inaccessible in memory. In addition, the model specifies several moderator variables that influence the extent of LAC, including the strength of association between X and Y, processing effort, and the striving for cognitive consistency. The aim of the current proposal is to provide an empirical test of the LAC model's six postulates, as well as to test the proposed moderation hypotheses.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Dr. Tina Glaser, until 6/2018