ABSTRACT
Pollsters do it with precision. Theorists do it with conceptual flair. Survey researchers do it for a living. “It,” of course, is designing questionnaires to measure attitudes!
Puns and double entendres aside, attitude measurement plays a critical role in the study and practice of persuasion. It is the practical side of the field, the down-toearth domain that provides the instrumentation to test hypotheses and to track changes in attitudes and beliefs. If there were no reliable scientific techniques to measure attitudes, we would not know how people evaluated social and political issues. We would not know the impact that persuasive communications had on people’s feelings and thoughts. Documenting the effects of large-scale media campaigns would perman - ently elude us.
