| Within social psychology, it has long been recognized that people attend to, process and remember attitude-relevant information very selectively. Until recently, there has been a great deal of controversy concerning which types of information people recall. Recent meta-analytic evidence illustrates that the relationship between attitude valence and selective recall is moderated by a number of factors, including affective and cognitive structural variables. The present research more fully explores the relationship between affective and cognitive factors and selective recall. Three studies examined the influence of an affective and cognitive focus manipulation on processing and retention of information relevant to participants' attitudes. In each study, participants were exposed to valenced statements about an attitude issue under a defensive processing goal. Half of the participants were asked to focus on their feelings and emotions toward the information, while the other half were asked to focus on their beliefs and cognitions. In two of these experiments, participants were also classified according to whether their pre-existing attitude toward the issue was affectively or cognitively based. Study 1 demonstrated that participants who were cognitively focused or who held cognitively based attitudes tended to recall more evaluatively incongruent information. Participants who were affectively focused or who held affectively based attitudes tended to recall more evaluatively congruent information. Study 2 and Study 3 attempted to explore the mechanism whereby affective and cognitive structural attitude components affect the direction of attitude-relevant recall. In Study 2, the effect of exposure time on recall for attitude-relevant information was examined. However, the results of this study failed to indicate any relationship between this manipulation and the temporary focus manipulation. Study 3 examined differences in attitude-relevant information elaboration in a thought-listing task. Focus and attitude basis were related to several theoretically interesting differences. |
