Effects of Repeated Expressions on Attitude Extremity

Fazio has shown that repeated attitude expressions increase the accessibility of the attitude. Increases in accessibility in turn lead to greater attitude-behavior consistency. The present work examines the effects of repeated expressions on attitude extremity. In the 1st study, it is shown that repeated expressions increase extremity when the expressions involve only judgments of attitude valence. In the 2nd study, a similar effect of repeated expressions on extremity is shown when the expressions are given orally, unconstrained by any particular response format. The 3rd study examines a possible mechanism for the effect of repeated expressions on extremity that is based on an associative learning model in which the repeated rehearsal of a response to an object leads to more extreme judgments. The relations between attitude extremity and accessibility and their roles in moderating the attitude-behavior relationship are discussed.