Predicting prejudicial attitudes: the importance of affect, cognition and the feeling-belief dimension

Zanna and Rempel (1988) have suggested that an attitude be viewed as an overall evaluation of a stimulus object which is based on affective, cognitive, and behavioral information. The present study applied this formulation of the attitude concept to the domain of intergroup attitudes, in order to discover the relative importance of affect and cognition in predicting prejudice. In addition, the study also served as a preliminary test of the hypothesis that there are individual differences in the tendency to use affective and cognitive information in guiding attitudes. Subjects completed measures of attitudes, affect, stereotypic beliefs, and symbolic beliefs toward five groups. As well, they completed a preliminary version of the Feeling-Belief Measure (FBM), a scale intended to assess individual differences in the extent to which an individual's attitudes are guided by their feelings and thoughts. The results revealed that the relative importance of affect and cognition in predicting prejudice was a function of not only the target group, but also the subject's score on the FBM. The implications of the results are discussed