ABSTRACT
General attitudes toward the incumbent are obtained, and the interest is in predicting a range of behaviors, such as making a contribution, canvassing a neighborhood, and placing one’s name on a newspaper advertisement endorsing the incumbent. A long history of debate surrounds the proposition that attitudes are related to behavior. Despite the confusion, pessimism, and negative evidence of the 1960s, some social psychologists refused to give up their commitment to the belief that attitudes and behaviors must be related. The degree of consistency between attitudes and behavior can be manipulated by the use of confederates who either provide arguments that contradict the individual’s attitudinal position or act in ways that contradict that position. R. Norman examined the affective and cognitive components of attitudes and found that behavior could be more accurately predicted for those characterized by high affective-cognitive consistency than for those lacking such consistency.
