Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1994

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Latane, Bibb

Abstract

The catastrophe theory of attitudes (Latane & Nowak, 1994) predicts that extremity will be a function of involvement, with uninvolving attitudes normally distributed about a neutral midpoint and involving attitudes categorical and extreme. Two processes that may lead attitudes to become more involving and extreme were tested in this experiment--thought-induced polarization and information-induced polarization. College students rated social issues before and after thinking and/or reading information about them. Attitudes became more extreme after respondents read mixed information about the attitude object, particularly for issues on which participants were initially uninvolved, but did not extremify after thought alone. There was little evidence for selective encoding or retrieval or for biased assimilation, though increases in attitude extremity were associated with increases in involvement. Thus, as predicted by catastrophe theory, reading mixed information may increase involvement in an issue, which in turn leads to more extreme attitudes.

Extent

85 p.

Comments

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1994.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1994.

Identifier

FADT15110

Format

pdf

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