Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 May;45(5):391-398.
doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000198. Epub 2014 Jan 1.

Liking More Means Doing More: Dispositional Attitudes Predict Patterns of General Action

Justin Hepler  1 , Dolores Albarracin  2
Affiliations

Liking More Means Doing More: Dispositional Attitudes Predict Patterns of General Action

Justin Hepler et al. Soc Psychol (Gott). 2014 May.

Abstract

Dispositional attitudes are an individual difference in the tendency to form positive versus negative attitudes. As positive (negative) attitudes promote active (inactive) responses to stimuli, we predicted that dispositional attitudes would be positively correlated with patterns of general action. In Study 1, participants reported all activities they engaged in during a 1-week period using a structured time use survey. Dispositional attitudes were positively correlated with the number of unique behaviors participants engaged in and with the total number of behaviors reported for the entire week. Study 2 replicated Study 1 using a free response time use survey. Overall, the results demonstrated that dispositional attitudes predict general action, such that the tendency to form positive (negative) attitudes predicts the tendency to engage in many (few) behaviors in daily life. This pattern occurred for both low effort and high effort behaviors. Implications for understanding activity patterns are discussed.

Keywords: action; attitudes; behavior; dispositional attitudes; motivation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Aarts H, Custers R, Holland RW. The nonconscious cessation of goal pursuit: When goals and negative affect are coactivated. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2007;92:165–178. - PubMed
    1. Aarts H, Custers R, Veltkamp M. Goal priming and the affective-motivational route to nonconscious goal pursuit. Social Cognition. 2008;26:555–577.
    1. Ajzen I, Fishbein M. Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin. 1977;84:888–918.
    1. Ajzen I, Fishbein M. The Influence of attitudes on behavior. In: Albarracin D, Johnson B, Zanna MP, editors. The handbook of attitudes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2005. pp. 173–221.
    1. Albarracin D, Handley IM. The time for doing is not the time for change: Effects of general action and inaction goals on attitude retrieval and attitude change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2011;100:983–998. - PMC - PubMed