Research
Some people seem to cling tightly to their opinions, and neither time nor evidence can change them. My research seeks to advance attitude theory by understanding novel determinants of when attitudes change and when they withstand such pressures to change. Simply defined, an attitude is an evaluation of some target, which can include objects, issues, people, and groups. Someone who likes exercising has a positive attitude toward that activity and someone who opposes nuclear power has a negative attitude toward that source of energy. I am especially interested in when and why attitudes change and the biological mechanisms underlying especially durable or malleable attitudes.
The Role of Subjective Experience
Psychologists have long known that perception does not always reflect reality—a theme that has reverberated through many subfields in psychology. In one program of research, I have been examining the unique role of perception in attitude processes. Many consequential attitude attributes can be considered at a relatively objective level and at a relatively subjective level, raising the question of whether the objective or subjective level of that attribute is more influential. In my research, I have shown how subjective perceptions of important attitude variables can carry more weight than the objective experience.
For example, I have applied this question to understanding the influence of morality in attitude processes. Although prior studies have shown that people’s attitudes change less and predict behavior better when they have a moral basis (see Skitka, 2010), they only measured self-reports of moral bases. In several experiments, I instead directly manipulated perceptions of moral bases through false feedback and demonstrated that independent of any actual ties to moral values, simply thinking an opinion was morally based (vs. grounded in a non-moral basis) prompted greater resistance to a persuasive message (Luttrell, Briñol, Petty, & Wagner, 2016, JESP).
Understanding Attitude Stability Over Time
Even without any direct attempts to change a person’s attitude, some attitudes will persist over time, whereas others are less stable. Even though understanding an attitude’s longevity is critical for predicting future attitude-relevant behavior, little is known about the natural fluctuation in people’s attitudes.
To better understand when an attitude will be especially stable over time, I have examined the interactive effects of attitude certainty (i.e., higher or lower confidence about one’s attitude) and ambivalence (i.e., having both positive and negative reactions toward an attitude topic). We have found that the typical pattern of greater confidence leading to greater long-term stability only holds when attitudes are relatively unambivalent. In contrast, for highly ambivalent attitudes, the impact of greater certainty has a reversed effect of leading to greater attitude change (Luttrell, Petty, & Briñol, 2016, JESP). I have shown this pattern across several social, health-related, and political topics, including attitudes toward alcohol, organic food, and candidates during the 2012 U.S. presidential election.
Applying a Neuroscience Approach to Attitude Processes
The burgeoning field of social neuroscience offers an interesting lens through which to study attitude strength. Although research has considered the biological underpinnings of valence processing, less work has been done to understand attitude strength’s biological correlates. That is, beyond mere positivity vs. negativity, how does the brain additionally process attitude attributes like certainty, ambivalence, and extremity?
To this end, I have conducted some research using both neuroimaging and neurochemical manipulations to start to understand these processes. In one line of research, I have used fMRI to scan participants’ brains as they render valenced judgments and later examine those neural responses’ relationship with other attributes like certainty and ambivalence (Luttrell, Stillman, Hasinski, & Cunningham, 2016, JEP:G). In another line of research, I have helped test the role of acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol ®) in the extremity of evaluative responses (Durso, Luttrell, & Way, 2016, Psych Sci).
