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Attitudes and behavior
So far, our discussion of attitudes has assumed that there is
a close relationship between attitudes and behavior. Attitudes
should predict behavior. Otherwise, why would anyone care? If
attitudes didn't predict behavior, for example, would advertisers
care to spend millions of dollars to change them? Probably not,
given that they are ultimately concerned with whether someone
actually purchases their products. But how close is the relationship
between attitudes and behavior?
In 1934, Richard LaPiere <REF>traveled the western part
of the United States with a Chinese couple. At the time, prejudice
against Chinese minorities was quite common and you might expect
that they encountered much discrimination. In fact, they didn't.
Although they visited more than 250 hotels, restaurants, and campgrounds,
they were refused service only once. After the trip was over,
LaPiere wrote to all of the places they had visited and asked
them if they would accept "members of the Chinese race as
guests." Half of the establishments responded and 90% of
them said they would not allow Chinese guests. In other words,
their actions bore little correspondence to their attitudes.
Of course, there are several possible explanations for LaPiere's
results. It's not clear, for example, whether the people who filled
out the opinion surveys were the same people who made decisions
at the front desks. Similarly, the surveys were completed six
months after the visits were made. It is always possible that
attitudes changed during that period of time. But the evidence
for attitude behavior inconsistency is not limited to LaPiere's
study. In a sweeping review of the attitude literature, Alan Wicker<REF>
(1971) found numerous examples where attitudes failed to predict
behavior. From church attendance to discrimination, he found little
evidence that attitudes predict behaviors. Why?
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