Investigating the social-adjustive and value-expressive functions of attitudes: Implications for persuasion processes.

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Abstract
In Study 1, individuals for whom attitudes serve a primarily social-adjustive function (i.e., high-self-monitoring individuals) and individuals for whom attitudes serve a primarily value-expressive function (i.e., low-self-monitoring individuals) were identified. As expected, high-self-monitoring individuals experienced more attitude change after exposure to a message said to address a social-adjustive function, and low-self-monitoring individuals experienced more attitude change after listening to a message presumably directed at a value-expressive function. Moreover, subjects tended to generate proportionally more message-relevant thoughts in response to, and tended to recall better, functionally relevant messages. In addition, recall tended to be particularly consistent with postmessage attitudes when the message was functionally relevant. A second study suggested that the attitude change obtained in Study 1 occurred via peripheral route processes. Results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of adopting a functional approach and its implications for persuasion, information processing, and memory for attitudinally relevant information. Additionally, methods for studying attitudinal functions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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