1 HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO BE IGNORANT? MEASURING NONATTITUDES WITH RESPONSE LATENCIES IN SURVEYS

It is investigated whether nonattitudes can be measured through response latencies. Nonatti-tudes are directly linked to the concept of attitude accessibility as an operative indicator of attitude strength. In attitude theory, it is thought herby of a continuum between nonattitudes on one side (indicated by long latencies) and strong attitudes on the other side (indicated by short latencies). However, response latency is multidimensional. It does not only represent the associative strength, but also the mode of processing (e.g. spontaneous versus thoughtful). For empirical applications, response latency’s biases have to be controlled. In this paper the idea of response latency as an indicator of accessibility and nonattitudes is explored theoretically and empirically using response latency data of a nation-wide German Survey (CATI). Find-ings suggest that response latency can indeed be used to indicate nonattitudes, however not without controlling possible biases and also not without theoretical underpinnings