ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on attributional analysis of attitudes and persuasion. It describes the attributional approaches with D. J. Bem's self-perception theory, and reviews some of the spin-offs of the self-perception theory. The attributional approach to attitudes and persuasion characterizes people as active problem solvers and focuses on changes in attitudes that result from reasoned inferences. The chapter discusses the influence on attitudes of people's interpretations of and attributions regarding these "internal" sources of information. It illustrates how self-perception influences attitudes and behavior is provided by the foot-in-the-door technique for inducing compliance. The research on labeling and on overjustification supports Bem's notions of self-perception and the inference of attitudes. The attributional approach indicates that inducing a person to act in a particular manner leads to attitude change to the extent that the person is unaware of the external forces causing the behavior.
