Abstract

Most psychological processes involve some form of thought or feeling that influences outcomes like judgments or behaviors. Psychological processes receive a great deal of attention because hypothesized processes help to predict and explain the judgment or behavioral phenomenon and are applicable to a wide variety of specific antecedents of judgment and behavior. Furthermore, such processes often imply or explicitly outline constraints on the circumstances that might lead to that phenomenon or describe the kinds of interventions that might be effective in influencing that phenomenon. The current chapter is concerned with cognitive processes that underlie attitude formation and change. Cognitive processes have been at the heart of research on attitudes since the beginning (e.g., Peterson & Thurstone, 1933). But what does it mean for a process to be cognitive?