Attitude as an Interactional Concept: Social Constraint and Social Distance as Intervening Variables Between Attitudes and Action

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Abstract
The present paper investigates the effect of selected situational variables on the relationship between a verbal attitude and overt behavior toward the object of that attitude. It provides data which suggest reformulation of two theoretical schemes describing the relationship between prejudice, discrimination and the situation of action. In a relatively large-scale field experiment in a university setting, two multidimensional factors, "social constraint" and "social distance," were systematically introduced as intervening conditions in order to assess the degree to which they reduced correspondence between verbal attitudes toward Negroes and overt acts of acceptance or rejection of Negroes. Generally, these intervening factors had different mediating influences on different types of subjects.

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