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Double Denial in Attitude Formation 1
Author(s) -
Sjöberg Lennart,
Montgomery Henry
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb01404.x
Subject(s) - denial , psychology , social psychology , expectancy theory , value (mathematics) , object (grammar) , argumentation theory , salient , attitude , epistemology , mathematics , statistics , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science , psychoanalysis
While expressing their attitude toward an object, people sometimes deny both the probability of attributes that would speak against the attitude and the value of these attributes. We term this kind of functioning double denial. Double denial is incompatible with expectancy‐value models of attitude formation. In eight studies of attitudes, values, and beliefs, there was clear evidence for double denial. The evidence was particularly strong for items measuring salient beliefs and for items and groups of participants yielding belief ratings that strongly correlated with attitudes. The results are interpreted in terms of the social functions of values and beliefs in the construing of arguments pro or con an attitude object. It is concluded that beliefs and values are dynamic entities, continually shaped in argumentation, and that expectancy‐value models of attitude are inadequate to account for the relationships among attitudes, beliefs and values.