Abstract

The knowledge structure of individuals' attitude is divided into three : having little knowledge about an attitude object(Type I), having knowledge about either a positive or a negative aspect of the object(Type 2), and having knowledge about both positive and negative aspects(Type 3). This study investigated whether the differences in the information-processing mode depended on the knowledge structure of individuals' attitude(Experiment I and II) and what made cognitive characteristics of individuals different (Experiment III). In Experiment I and II, Type 1 and 2 were found to do the peripheral-route processing in which attitude change could be made by peripheral cues (e.g., expert-nonexpert). On the contrary, Type 3 did the central-route processing in which attitude change could be made by central cues (e.g., strength of the message). The result of Experiment III showed that the positive and negative attitudes of Type l and 2 were bipolar. In contrast, dual were Type 3. This means that Type 1 and 2 have cognitive simplicity and Type 3 has cognitive complexity. In addition, the degree to which subjects differentiated on the descriptive and evaluative dimensions depended on the structure of knowledge. Type 1 did not differentiate on both descriptive and evaluative dimensions. Type 2 differentiated well on the evaluative dimension but not on the descriptive dimension and Type 3 was vise versa. The results imply that information-processing mode has qualitative differences depending on knowledge structure and these differences are the result of cognitive complexity. Thus, the necessity of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects of an individual's attitude assessment and the possibility of attitude's qualitative development are discussed.