ABSTRACT
In the early years of social psychology, theorists were full of optimism about research on attitudes. Gordon Allport, writing in the Handbook of Social Psychology, for instance, held that: “The concept of attitude is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American social psychology” (1935, p. 798). He also commented that the attitude concept had “established itself as the keystone in the edifice of American social psychology” (1935, p. 798). Not only Allport but other theorists as well believed that attitudes could be used to predict what people will see, hear, feel, think, and do. They also believed that unwanted attitudes could be changed by well-designed persuasive techniques, if only we understood enough about how they work. Subsequent research, however, revealed two major problems with the attitude construct.
