ABSTRACT
The functional theorists believed that people hold attitudes because these attitudes serve particular needs that people have-such as to understand the world, fit in with others, express important values, have high self-es-teem, and so forth (see Katz, 1960; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956). For example, a person might develop a prejudice toward a minority group because this negative evaluation of the out-group makes the person feel better about the in-group and him-or herself. Research on attitude functions requires some method for assessing the functions served by attitudes, and contemporary theorists have
identified a number of ways in which attitude functions can be identified. One method relies on individual differences and suggests that most attitudes serve different functions for different people. For example, for some people, most attitudes might serve a value-expressive function but for others, most attitudes might serve a social-adjustive function (e.g., Clary, Snyder, Ridge, Miene, & Haugen, 1994; Snyder & DeBono, 1985, 1989). An alternative to the individual difference approach suggests that attitudes toward particular issues or objects might serve a common function for most people. For example, attitudes toward aspirin might be based primarily on utilitarian concerns (e.g., Abelson & Prentice, 1989; Prentice, 1987; Shavitt, 1990). It also seems possible that different situations could make different functions of an attitude salient for most objects and for most people. For example, when at a party, the social-adjustive functions of one’s attitudes might dominate, but when in church, valueexpressive motivations might be prepotent. Finally, it is possible that in some cases there is little consistency in functions, and thus one must assess functions separately for each attitude object for each person in each situation (see Herek, 1987). Various combinations could also be possible. That is, for some people, a subset of their attitudes might be chronically based on socialadjustment concerns, whereas another set is based on value-expressive concerns and a third set is subject to situational variability.
