Attitude "is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American social psychology" (Allport 1985, p. 35). Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been published on the topic. A review of this literature may be found in Eagly and Chaiken (1998). Despite this popularity, there is considerable disagreement about such basics as terminology. Several terms are frequently used as synonyms for attitude, including opinion and belief. Contemporary writers often distinguish attitudes from cognitions, which is broader and includes attitudes as well as perceptions of one's environment. Most analysts distinguish attitude from value, the latter referring to a person's ultimate concerns or preferred modes of conduct.

An attitude is a learned predisposition to respond to a particular object in a generally favorable or unfavorable way. Every attitude is about an object, and the object may be a person, product, idea, or event. Each attitude has three components: (1) a belief...