Timing of Reasons Analysis and Attitude-Behavior Consistency

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Abstract
Having people think about reasons why they hold particular attitudes has been shown to reduce the correlation between attitudes and behaviors. Failures to replicate this phenomenon may have been due to the timing of reasons-analysis manipulations. In this study, 81 subjects were divided into three groups. As they familiarized themselves with a set of photographs of opposite-sex adults, the first group was asked to think of reasons why they found each picture attractive or unattractive. After they had rated the attractiveness of each photogTaph and had completed a 20-min. “filler” task, they were asked to refamiliarize themselves with the photographs. The behavior, time spent looking at each photograph, was recorded on videotape. A second group of subjects analyzed reasons following an initial perusal of the photographs. A control group did not analyze reasons. Mean attitude-behavior correlations between attractiveness ratings and times spent looking at pictures were .35 in the control group, .46 in the reasons-analysis-after-familiarization group, and .05 in the reasons-analysis-during-familiarization group. These results suggest that the timing of reasons-analysis manipulations may be an important limiting condition on the reasons-analysis effect.