Personal involvement, social judgment, and action

Investigated relationships among the attitudes of acceptance, rejection, and noncommitment to develop indicators of ego involvement, using the own-categories method and the method of ordered alternatives. 5 studies were conducted with the following groups: 67 Indian university students; 48 senior high school girls; 31 left-wing, 20 conservative, and 76 uncommitted undergraduates; 255 undergraduates; and 215 female undergraduates. Degree of involvement was differentiated across attitude positions (extreme-moderate) and among persons taking the same position. Findings indicate that degree of involvement is (a) inversely related to fineness of discrimination in judging beliefs about one's reference group; (b) associated with the priority of normative concerns (values) in one's reference group; (c) positively related to selectivity in attributing credibility to communicators and to contrast effects in judging communicator positions; (d) inversely related to attitude change in response to short communications; and (e) positively related to the probability of action and positive response to social pressures to action congruent with attitude. Factors affecting the indicators and possible implications for attitude research are discussed.