Attitude Accessibility and Motivation as Determinants of Biased Processing: A Test of the MODE Model

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Abstract
The roles of attitude accessibility and motivation in the biased processing of information were examined as a test of the MODE model. Subjects evaluated two studies with conflicting conclusions regarding capital punishment's crime deterrence efficacy. Attitude accessibility was manipulated by having subjects express their death penalty attitudes either once (low accessibility) or repeatedly (high accessibility) during an initial phase of the experiment. Motivation was manipulated viafear of invalidity; half the subjects were told their evaluations of the capital punishment studies would be publicly compared to an expert panel's conclusions. The relation between attitude and judgment was found to depend on both attitude accessibility and motivation. Judgments were more attitudinally congruent in the low-fear-of-invalidity/repeated-expression condition than in the other conditions.