Thought- and information-induced polarization: The role of involvement in making attitudes extreme

The catastrophe theory of attitudes (Latane & Nowak, 1994) predicts that extremity will be a function of involvement, with uninvolving attitudes normally distributed about a neutral midpoint and involving attitudes categorical and extreme. Two processes that may lead attitudes to become more involving and extreme were tested in this experiment--thought-induced polarization and information-induced polarization. College students rated social issues before and after thinking and/or reading information about them. Attitudes became more extreme after respondents read mixed information about the attitude object, particularly for issues on which participants were initially uninvolved, but did not extremify after thought alone. There was little evidence for selective encoding or retrieval or for biased assimilation, though increases in attitude extremity were associated with increases in involvement. Thus, as predicted by catastrophe theory, reading mixed information may increase involvement in an issue, which in turn leads to more extreme attitudes.