ABSTRACT
This paper is mainly concerned with the analysis of attitude structure by models of nonmetric multidimensional scaling (MDS). We think that the analysis of attitude structure is fundamental for attitude research. We do not believe that every person has an attitude toward every object, as is suggested by the application of classical attitude measurement procedures to representative samples. On the contrary, we consider it necessary to prove that an individual holds an attitude toward one or more objects, called the attitude domain. Then it seems necessary to specify criteria that allow one to judge whether an attitude exists or not. In the literature, several characteristics of attitudes are mentioned, among them:
Attitudes are related to social objects—in contradistinction to personality traits, which are not oriented toward a specific external object.
Attitudes are relatively stable, usually more stable than motives and less stable than personality traits.
Attitudes are learned.
Attitudes generalize over different aspects of a social object or over different objects of the same domain.
Attitudes show structure, e.g. cognitive, evaluative, and intentional components.
