Attitudes and Social Cognition

Abstract

Abstract Social cognition and the study of attitudes have long enjoyed a synergistic relationship. This chapter provides an overview of different research programs that exemplify such synergies. The main theme that emerges from this tour through the literature is that adopting a social cognitive perspective helped attitudes researchers better understand central issues and resolve crises in the field. In turn, early theoretical and methodological advances in the attitudes field formed part of the zeitgeist that led to the rise of the social cognition movement. Moreover, these advances sometimes aligned the attitudes literature with those literatures that are traditionally considered to fall under the umbrella of social cognition (e.g. impression formation, stereotypes, the self). Last, the adoption of theoretical and methodological developments by attitudes researchers sometimes acted as catalysts for progress in traditional social cognition literatures.