Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2014
It is generally agreed that attitudes are composed of elements from the affective, behavioral, and cognitive domains. The affective component has been referred to as a feeling or an emotional response of liking or disliking, a gut reaction, or sympathetic nervous activity. The behavioral component includes overt actions or intentions of action, and verbal statements regarding future behavior. The cognitive component includes knowledge and beliefs of the attitude object that describe its characteristics, and its relationship to other objects (Breckler 1984, Katz 1960, Morris and Stuckhardt 1977).
Recent attitude research suggests discriminating between the three psychological domains, either by measuring each or by specifying which one is the focus of concern. Discrimination may be appropriate since the three domains are distinguishable from one another and correlations among them are sometimes moderate (Breckler 1984). Discrimination among attitudinal domains also appears to be necessary since it has been found that directing change at one of the three domains may affect a shift in the other two (Cialdini et al. 1976, Katz 1960), and because differences between groups of subjects may fall within one or two of the domains rather than all three (Quattrone 1985).