Attitudes versus Actions: The Relationship of Verbal and Overt Behavioral Responses to Attitude Objects

Gordon Allport (1954) has described the attitude concept as the primary building stone in the edifice of social psychology p. 45, and the extensive attitude literature in the past 20 years supports this contention. Stimulated primarily by the cognitive consistency theories, thousands of pages have been written recent-ly on attitude formation and change. One possible reason for the popularity of the attitude concept is that social psychologists have assumed that attitudes have something to do with social behavior. Cohen (1964), in the con-cluding chapter of his book. Attitude Change and Social Influence, states: The writer is indebted to the following colleagues for helpful suggestions and comments on an earlier version of this paper: Roger Barker, L. B. Korn-reich, Eugene Levitt, and Lawrence Linn. Thanks are also due to Anthony Fazio and James Green who supplied unpublished studies for review, and to Dean Bolton and Douglas Simpson for library work. Locating relevant references was facilitated by Deutschers bibliography (1966a). This research was supported