ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the dearth of research on cognition and affect by investigating the promising role that the attitude concept has for the psychology of religion. It focuses on what has been dubbed the “mediational” or “process” model. Social psychologists commonly agree that an attitude involves categorizing an object along some sort of good-bad evaluative dimension. Social psychologists commonly agree that an attitude involves categorizing an object along some sort of good-bad evaluative dimension. One particular element of the cognitive component of attitude is the distinction between automatic and controlled processes. Some attitudes are strong in the sense that they result from closely linked associations between an object and its accompanying evaluation, whereas the more divorced object-to-evaluation relationship defines a weak attitude. The notion that an automatic attitude is immediately activated upon the mere presentation of a corresponding attitude object, regardless of any attempt to ignore it, may describe what a highly religious person experiences toward a religious attitude object.
