ABSTRACT

Attitudes are evaluations of people, places, things, and ideas. They help us to navigate through a complex world. They provide guidance for decisions about which products to buy, how to travel to work, or where to go on vacation. They color our perceptions of others. Carefully crafted interventions can change attitudes and behavior. Yet attitudes, beliefs, and behavior are often formed and changed in casual social exchanges. The mere perception that other people—say, rich people— favor something may be sufficient to make another person favor it. People’s own actions also influence their attitudes, such that they adjust to be more supportive of the actions. People’s belief systems even change to align with and support their preferences, which at its extreme is a form of denial for which people lack awareness.

These two volumes of The Handbook of Attitudes provide authoritative, critical surveys of theory and research about attitudes, beliefs, persuasion, and behavior from key authors in these areas. This second volume covers applications to measurement, behavior prediction, and interventions in the areas of cancer, HIV, substance use, diet, and exercise, as well as in politics, intergroup relations, aggression, migrations, advertising, accounting, education, and the environment.

part I|196 pages

Health

chapter 6|45 pages

Doing Harm to Some

Patient and Provider Attitudes and Healthcare Disparities

part IV|159 pages

Intergroup Relations, Social Structure, and Politics

part V|62 pages

Education, Leisure, and Family

part VI|16 pages

Summation

chapter 19|14 pages

Application of Attitude Research Across Domains

Current State of Knowledge and Future Directions